


carry your ocean with me

by mihaeng



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Age Difference, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Slow Burn, Summer, jongin and myeon are bros, jongin is het, sehun and myeon are 8 yrs apart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-06-24 19:01:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 41,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19729849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mihaeng/pseuds/mihaeng
Summary: When Junmyeon gets dragged back home for summer this year, the last thing he expects is to fall back in love with it.





	carry your ocean with me

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt Petal:** #247  
>  **Author's note:**  
>  To the prompter:  
> i hope i did your prompt a little justice- sorry if it turned out different than what you'd expected. your prompt was wonderful.  
> To the mods:  
> thank you for being so patient with me. i'm sorry i caused so much trouble. you're an angel.  
> To my beta:  
> a thousand thank yous wouldn't suffice to express the gratitude i have for you for betaing this fic. without you, this fic would have never seen the light of day. i LOVE you.  
> To my readers:  
> this fic takes place in santa barbara, which i love a lot- but unfortunately i don't live there, so i apologize if make mistakes through out the fic. but mostly, i hope you enjoy and love this fic as much as i love seho (and as much as they love each other sobs)!
> 
> p.s: this fic title is somewhat based on E.E Cumming's ["i carry your heart with me"](https://static.poetryfoundation.org/jstor/i20591778/pages/8.png) poem.

Junmyeon found out that summer didn’t look good on him when he was twenty-three.

It’s a startling realization when he’d spent almost all of his summers with his half-brother Kim Jongin who glitters under the sun with his perfectly tanned skin, looking like an Egyptian god even when he’s just standing completely still in his Pororo beach shorts, turning heads of both men and women as his tongue laps around the red popsicle he’s holding in his hand absentmindedly.

He’d always thought that summer looked good on everyone—him included, too. It used to be his favorite season of the year, where the sky reveals all the shades of its clearest blues, where the sun shines bright enough to light up more than what meets the eye. Summer also marks Junmyeon’s freedom from the heavy chains of pollen energy, when his nose _finally_ gets unblocked and he can take a full deep breath of air without bursting into a fit of deathly sneezes. Granted, it’s cliché to love summer when it seems to be everybody’s favorite season, but in Junmyeon’s defense, he had been born and raised in a coastal city until he shipped himself away for college.

Until he met his ex, that is.

(If you can call someone who strung him along for almost a year under the guise of friendship and then dumped him without ever even properly kissing outside the influence of alcohol or other psychotropic drugs an ex, really.)

Kris Wu was tall, attractive, and charismatic—but the most dangerous attribute he possessed was the fact that he knew he was all _that_. It didn’t help that he had this adorable Canadian accent where he would constantly flex his vowels like he was the leading role in some romantic comedy where his Quirky Trait was his accent; making Junmyeon fall harder and faster than a meteor hard-wired to destroy the earth.

They’d met on Junmyeon’s second year of college, where they had been friends first, and then best friends, until they kind of weren’t after a stupid drunken game of spin the bottle that had changed the dynamics of their already complicated relationship severely. In an attempt to delve deeper into their own feelings, Kris had proposed the idea to spend their last summer in Junmyeon’s family home to get to know him better, before they have to graduate and face the possibility of parting ways for good.

In the three months that Kris had spent masquerading as Junmyeon’s not-boyfriend in Santa Barbara, though, nothing special ever really happened. It was on their last night there before they had to fly back to New York that Kris told Junmyeon the most peculiarly specific thing he’s ever heard in his whole life; Kris had told him that it was such a shame that Junmyeon didn’t look half as good as Jongin did under the Californian sun.

It had confused Junmyeon, at first, to be told something as trivial as “not looking good under the sun”, but then it started to hurt, because Junmyeon wasn’t a fool and he knew the implications behind Kris’ carefully-chosen words. As shallow as it had sounded, Junmyeon genuinely believed that Kris might just be The One for him, despite all the odds that they had to fight to get where they finally were. Junmyeon had been struggling with his own sexuality for the longest time, and Kris had been the first person who was able to put the struggle he has with himself to sleep.

But Kris didn’t love him back. At the time, he’d revealed that he had taken much more liking to Jongin, all along. It shouldn’t be as much of a surprise, really—Jongin, at eighteen, in all of his youthful glory, _is_ a catch.

Kris didn’t love him at all, not even once—the latter he realized much later when he saw Kris’ new relationship status on Facebook with a girl just a few months later, and when he received the invitation to Kris’ wedding reception to the same girl at the eve of his twenty-fifth birthday. Wrapping his head around the idea that he was unlovable proved to be much more than just difficult, so Junmyeon had focused his bitterness and anger towards Kris’ words instead, nurturing a budding resentment towards summer and himself that in the end stayed for way too long than he’d expected it to.

It had sounded like a good idea all those years ago, to shove his insecurity under the pretentious blanket of hating how the summer sun looked against his ghastly pale skin instead, but now that eight years have passed, it bothers him that he can’t bring himself to enjoy summer as much as he did back when he was younger.

Eight years have passed by since then.

Now that he’s thirty-one, he thinks summer will look even worse on him. The way his long hair falls in between his eyes and the lack of defined muscle on his body looks in the mirror doesn’t even look good in _general_ , so why would it look good later when he’s supposed to step out into the beach, where the sun is absolutely unforgiving, to take his niece and nephew on a playdate?

“Myeon-ah, why did you leave your cereal bowl in the sink like that?” his mother’s voice breaks Junmyeon out of his staring competition with himself in the mirror, “and for the love of God, please let yourself out of Jungah’s closet and take these little rascals out. You’ve been there for ten min—Raeonnie, please stop running!”

Junmyeon heaves a sigh. He can’t believe he’s thirty-one and yet still has to listen to his mother nag him about the dishes, but there’s nothing he can do now that he’s back in Santa Barbara after he promised Jongin that he’d come home for summer this year. He’d only been home strictly for Christmas for the past five years, and if it wasn’t for Jongin threatening him that he’s going to get on a plane to New York and personally drag Junmyeon back home if he didn’t come home for the summer, he had intended to keep his strictly-just-home-for-Christmas agenda for the rest of his life.

“Kim Junmyeon!” his mother yells again. Junmyeon groans. He takes one last look at his pale body in the mirror before grabbing a random shirt from the dresser as an afterthought, shouting an annoyed “I’m coming!” as he walks out of Jungah’s bedroom.

The sight of Raeon running around the living room chasing after God knows what while Rahee busily shoves her toys into her little Barbie beach bag greets Junmyeon the second he steps foot into the living room. Both of the toddlers are dressed in adorable matching Pororo swimsuits—a gift set from Jongin, he presumes—and the sight of them makes Junmyeon’s heart swells a little.

“Uncle Myeon,” Raeon pouts, running into Junmyeon’s legs and clinging onto it for dear life, “what took you so long! Let’s go now, pwease.”

Junmyeon’s heart constricts at the sight of his adorable nephew’s pout and the sound of his butchered Korean, and Rahee joins the shin-hugging action not long after, completely rendering him immobile. His mother giggles at the sight of Junmyeon and her grandchildren from the kitchen, the happiness that stems from her release as the sole responsible adult for the children very apparent in her eyes.

“Sorry it took so long,” Junmyeon reaches down to scoop both his nephew and niece into his arms, shooting a glare at his giggling mother while he does, “we can go after uncle puts on a shirt and Rahee after grabs her bag, okay?”

He gives time for the toddlers to absorb this information.

“Now I’m going to put you down, but only if you promise not to run,” he continues slowly, horribly failing at his attempt to look both Raeon and Rahee in the eye thanks to his short neck, but they nod enthusiastically to his words anyway. When he does put them down, though, they both immediately break into rabid sprints, Rahee effectively leaving her bag behind, Raeon his flip-flops, all the while Junmyeon is still half naked.

“Kids!” Junmyeon yells after them in defeat, rushing to grab Rahee’s bag while tucking his head into his shirt, running for the door. He can hear his mother cackling behind him, but he doesn’t have the time to glare at her for one last dramatic time because the kids have escaped the house.

It’s going to be a long summer.

*

Being a university professor has a lot of perks, one of them being the luxury of enjoying the same holidays as his students do. Junmyeon is well aware of how thankful he should be of his extra days off, especially when his friends constantly express how jealous they are of Junmyeon’s work perks, but it doesn’t feel like much of a holiday and more of a slow torture right now when he has to spend the first few days back home babysitting his niece and nephew alone instead of actually doing holiday-esque things like relaxing at home and turning himself into a hermit like he’d originally planned to do.

Jongin is supposed to fly back home two days after Junmyeon arrives, but the fool overslept and missed his flight right before a thunderstorm in Florida happened, so he won’t be flying back home until another three days. Jungah, on the other hand, is out on a business trip in San Francisco for the whole week. Junghee, his other sister, isn’t even coming home for the summer. She’s busy being successful and by that it means she’s busy opening more and more franchises of her own beauty salon up in the East Coast. His parents are both busy with their own shops during the day, especially in summer with his mother running her own fro-yo shop and his father busy in his car rental.

His family’s unavailability means that Junmyeon is left alone to tend Jungah’s kids for the next few days, at least until Jongin comes. It’s not that he hates helping with his niece and nephew or anything, especially when Jungah is a single mom, but it would be nice to have a day for him to sleep past 8 a.m without being woken up by tiny, cold hands trying to feel up his face and to not be dragged into the beach while being questioned with dumb kid questions at three-minute intervals.

It doesn’t help that he hates the beach with a burning passion. The strong summer sun had always made his skin look a sickly pale of yellow instead of bronzed like he used to think it did, and beaches provide literally no form of shade except for their stupid umbrellas that he has to fight with some other happy family to earn the spot. It’s a curse that the beach is within walking distance from his house.

“Uncle Myeon, why are you wearing a shirt again today?” Rahee cuts into Junmyeon’s thoughts innocently, and Junmyeon has to remind himself that Rahee is only five to dampen the annoyance budding in his chest at the repeated question. He musters the brightest smile he can, turning around to face Rahee that’s currently clawing at the sand with her tiny bare hands, eyes looking up at him expectantly. Raeon is sleeping right next to Junmyeon on the beach mat, passed out after a good hour of building sandcastles that resembles more of a sad cylinder sand-sculpture.

“Because Uncle Myeon doesn’t like the sun,” he explains slowly, gently, taking off his sunglasses to look at Rahee better. Junmyeon has told them that this morning, yesterday, and the day before that, and it looks like he won’t stop getting the same questions from Rahee or Raeon anytime soon unless he stops wearing shirts to the beach altogether.

Rahee blinks up at him, uncomprehending. “But why?”

“Uncle doesn’t like getting tanned,” Junmyeon tries a different approach this time, instead of explaining to them that he doesn’t want to swim, because he figures out by now that their tiny brains probably can’t understand why someone simply doesn’t _want_ to do things.

“What’s tanned?” Rahee asks again. Junmyeon’s mind skims through choices of the correct way to explain the concept of tanning speedily. On one hand, if he says that tanning means the darkening of his skin, it may lead Rahee to think that being dark-skinned is wrong because he said he didn’t like to tan. On the other hand, if he says that tanning means that the sun is burning his skin, he doesn’t know how it will go over inside Rahee’s head.

Shifting in his seat, Junmyeon sighs. It proves to be a wrong move because the change on the beach mat’s surface invites sand rolling freely onto the mat, and Junmyeon can feel it crawling onto the area he’s sitting on, into his ass.

“Tanning is the sun burning our skin,” he finally settles with the latter, because he figures that dealing with a freaked out five-year-old over a biological phenomenon is better than dealing with a racist niece.

Rahee just stares at him blankly. For a fleeting moment, Junmyeon thinks that he finally has the whole situation under control, until Rahee _shrieks_. It’s shrill and noisy, and it startles him and a dozen of other people around the perimeter. Beside him, Raeon stirs in his sleep.

“Rahee-yah,” Junmyeon jumps to his feet, crawling to where Rahee is seated a couple of feet away from him, sand now getting in between his toes and everywhere else he despises, “what’s wrong, sweetie?”

No words escape Rahee’s mouth. Instead, she looks around and then upward at the sky with an expression that Junmyeon recognizes as fear, before screaming once again. This forces Junmyeon to scoop her up in his arms in hopes of calming her down, and when he does, Rahee breaks into an ugly sob. Her face twists sadly, tears running down her cheeks, wetting Junmyeon’s shirt.

“I w-want to go home,” she says in between hiccoughs, burying her face into the crook of Junmyeon’s neck, tiny fingers twisting into Junmyeon’s shirt. Junmyeon is appalled, confused as to why Rahee suddenly wants to go home, but before he can question her unusual request, Raeon wakes up from his sleep abruptly. The two-year-old sits up in shock, his big, round eyes looking around vacuously—obviously looking for the source of the wailing that had disturbed his sleep.

As soon as his eyes land upon Rahee’s face, Junmyeon can almost hear the gears in his tiny little head connect the dots. Obviously, Raeon tears up, too, lips quivering as he finally registers the fact that his sister is crying.

Junmyeon can already feel a tiny, throbbing pulse that comes from the back of his head.

“Rahee-yah, we’re going home now, okay? Don’t cry anymore,” Junmyeon kneels down to clean their things up, forcing himself to grin at Raeon in a desperate attempt to calm him down as he reaches for his car keys placed right next to the small boy. He tries to ignore the feeling of the sand digging into the naked skin on his knees. Tries.

This time, it’s Raeon who bawls. “But Raeonnie doesn’t want to go home!”

“Fuck.”

The throbbing travels from the back of his head into every part of his head. Junmyeon groans internally, glaring at the mother sitting on a beach chair a few feet across from him that’s now staring at him with a judgmental look.

“What’s fuck?” Raeon looks up at him, eyes still filled with tears.

Junmyeon really can’t wait for the day Jongin arrives. Jongin has always been the better one with children, anyway.

*

For the first time ever since he’s stepped his foot back in Santa Barbara, Junmyeon wakes up feeling refreshed. He’s going to pick Jongin up at the airport today.

The last two days after the beach tragedy has Junmyeon on a twenty-four-hour babysitting duty lockdown, all whilst getting the short end of his mother’s patience stick. He’s sick of listening to his mother’s endless preaching about the importance of word choice when talking to children, especially when he’s an “educator”.

Junmyeon’s explanation of the word “tanning” had turned Rahee into a sun-fearing toddler. For two whole days, she’d refused to leave the house or go practically anywhere that’s exposed to the sun, locking herself inside her bedroom, seeking solace in her My Little Pony plushies. And as if there wasn’t enough drama already, Raeon instead had begged and cried endlessly to go out and play in the sun. This resulted in Junmyeon’s mother having to leave her shop unattended to stay with Rahee at home while Junmyeon takes Raeon out to play. His mother was _not_ a fan of staying at home when she has work to do.

All Jungah did, as the mother of Rahee herself, was laugh like a fucking hyena when Junmyeon called her for help in trying to convince Rahee that the sun isn’t going to kill her.

With Jongin here, though, Junmyeon thinks his mother might just stop leaving him passive aggressive comments. Maybe Jongin can be the one to convince Rahee that the sun won’t kill her. The possibilities are endless with Jongin here, and Junmyeon feels great.

He just needs the perfect cup of coffee to kick start his perfect day.

“Well someone’s in a good mood today,” his mother comments as she enters the kitchen, effectively ruining Junmyeon’s previous idea of having the perfect morning. He nods at her in reply, taking quick, deliberate sips out of his mug. He needs to finish the coffee before his mother starts nitpicking on all of Junmyeon’s flaws as a human being.

“You’re picking Jongin up after this, right?” this is how it typically starts with his mother, casual questions that will eventually turn nosy, where the final boss will come in the form of accusatory-slash-nagging questions like “when are you going to get married, Junmyeon?” and “marrying your work won’t birth you children, you know”. Junmyeon’s personal least-favorite is “are you perhaps fucking one of your students, now?”.

It wasn’t always like this—it only started ever since he turned three decades old.

Staring at his now empty mug, Junmyeon forces himself to ignore his stinging tongue and throat thanks to chugging down nearly boiling coffee under the span of two minutes to escape his mother’s nagging as he places the mug into the sink. “I’m picking him up right now, actually.”

“I’m leaving,” he adds before his mother can say anything else, jogging out of the living room, slipping into his slides in haste. He also kind of don’t want to wash his coffee mug.

“Wait—” his mother calls for Junmyeon the moment he opens the front door, “Junmyeon, you’re not seriously going to wear that to the airport, right?”

“It’s just Jongin,” he retorts, closing the door behind him in one swift motion.

Looking down at his gochujang-stained track pants paired with his socks-and-slides combo, Junmyeon decides that he doesn’t care. It’s just Jongin.

*

Junmyeon spots Jongin the moment he steps out of the arrival gate, face lighting up to match Jongin’s grin at the sight of his face.

“Nini!” he waves enthusiastically, getting on his tippy toes to catch his younger brother’s attention even though Jongin had already spotted him. Jongin waves back with the same level of enthusiasm, now jogging towards him with a spring in each step he takes. It takes five seconds for Jongin to reach him, and Junmyeon quickly engulfs Jongin in a bone-crushing hug the moment he is within arms’ reach.

Jongin feels even taller than Junmyeon last remembered—do men still grow after twenty-one?—and he smells strongly of the cologne Junmyeon had bought him for Christmas last year.

“Jongin—”

“Hyung, this is Sehun,” Jongin cuts over him, taking a prompt step backward, grabbing the arm of a blond boy Junmyeon hadn’t realize had been standing behind Jongin all this time. Jongin shoves the boy—Sehun—towards Junmyeon unceremoniously, but Sehun catches himself in time just before he bumps into Junmyeon.

Junmyeon’s breath catches in his throat, overwhelmed by Sehun’s proximity that’s a tad bit too close for his liking. The boy adjusts himself calmly, not without glaring at Jongin. Or staring. Junmyeon doesn’t know if Sehun is glaring or staring at Jongin because it looks like his default expression.

The boy is even taller than Jongin, but his face looks _younger_. He’s dressed in a similar kind of fashion with Junmyeon’s—the track pants and shirt he’s dressed in nearly identical to Junmyeon’s—but he looks infinitely better in it than Junmyeon does, his shoulders stretching out the plain white shirt he’s wearing perfectly, showcasing his defined and taut muscles, and the dark grey track pants hugs his calves wonderfully.

“Sehun Oh,” Oh, he’s Korean. But he introduces his name the American way.

Sehun takes a step back as he introduces himself, his voice a stark contrast to what Junmyeon had anticipated. Sehun sounds younger than he looks. The information makes Junmyeon stare blankly at Sehun’s outstretched hand, and then onto the thick, beautiful veins that runs along his long, sturdy arm. He only notices that he’s been staring at Sehun’s outstretched hand instead of shaking it like a normal person would when Jongin clears his throat awkwardly, cheeks flushing in embarrassment as he reaches to shake Sehun’s hand.

“Kim Junmyeon.” Junmyeon’s voice comes out slightly strained. He blames it on Sehun’s painfully handsome face—since when did Jongin start hanging out with gorgeous kids like him? If he knew better, he would’ve visited his baby brother sooner.

Sehun’s grip on his hand is strong and firm, and it ignites something funny in the pit of Junmyeon’s stomach. It must be his face. Junmyeon swallows thickly when Sehun lets go of his hand, somehow disappointed at the loss of warmth on his hand. His fingers feel a little too cold now.

“Nice to meet you. Jongin talks a lot about you,” Sehun continues flatly. His face is void of any emotions, and it makes Junmyeon wonder if he had made a mistake in the last two minutes, like gripped Sehun’s hand way too hard to make Sehun sound and look so… indifferent towards him.

“Oh, really. Nice to meet you, too,” Junmyeon doesn’t mean to sound as stiff as he does. “Are you in the same department with Jongin?”

“Yeah. He’s my senior, _actually_ ,” Sehun replies disinterestedly. He switches between English and Korean fluidly, catching Junmyeon somewhat off guard. Junmyeon had never found it necessary to mix both of his languages unless it was to express a word that didn’t co-exist in both languages.

There’s a stretch of silence between the two of them after, Junmyeon unable to come up with anything interesting with Sehun’s eyes locking into his with the intensity of a thousand suns. A thousand bored suns, to be more accurate. Junmyeon succumbs to sending Jongin a look that screams _help me_ , and thankfully Jongin is quick enough to catch on. He lets out a nervous chuckle as a reaction, clapping Sehun’s shoulder with his right hand Junmyeon’s shoulder with the other.

“You look surprised, hyung,” Jongin breaks the silence, smiling widely as he nudges them both with his hands to start walking. Junmyeon uses the moment to grab Jongin’s duffel bag from his grasp, then peeking over to Sehun’s side to see if there’s anything he can Sehun with.

Both fortunately and unfortunately, Sehun only brought one single suitcase with him. Junmyeon doesn’t know if he’s relieved that he doesn’t have to offer Sehun his help, or disappointed that he can’t strike up another conversation with the handsome boy. Wait. Why would he be disappointed? Sehun can ignore him for the rest of the summer and he’d be okay with that. He doesn’t care if Sehun doesn’t pay attention to him. He _shouldn’t_ care.

“You didn’t tell me you were bringing your friend over this time,” Junmyeon laughs awkwardly, now suddenly hyper-aware of how disgusting he must look like. Peering down at his ratty white t-shirt, he zeroes in on a tiny hole at the bottom of his shirt that he didn’t even notice before. He decides he should at least try to hide it by shoving his shirt discreetly into his track pants.

Jongin bursts into peals of laughter when he catches Junmyeon’s eyes amidst hastily tucking in his poor excuse of a shirt. Junmyeon has it in him to sound unashamed when he mutters, “I would’ve dressed better if I knew there was company.”

“You don’t look _that_ bad.” The teasing is palpable in Jongin’s voice. “He’s my best friend, hyung—I send you pictures of us together all the time.”

“Oh.” Junmyeon’s mouth falls open in reflex. _Oh_. He feels his fingers get stuck in a lump of hair when he attempts to nonchalantly brush a hand through it. Junmyeon hadn’t showered in two days. His hair is slick with grease. Hoping no one noticed his disgusting mishap, he pipes, “You did? When?”

“All the time,” Jongin answers, tilting his head sideways very slightly as if asking Junmyeon: _you read my messages, right?_

Junmyeon wracks his brain in hopes of recalling Sehun’s face in one of Jongin’s daily selfies, but all he can picture is Jongin’s various facial expressions, and a few of his other nameless friends that don’t look half as good as Sehun does. Junmyeon looks up at Jongin, trying his hardest not to look lost.

“If it helps, I’ve only recently dyed my hair blond,” Sehun hops into Junmyeon’s rescue. Junmyeon nearly jumps, not expecting Sehun to say anything so soon, especially when the kid looks like he doesn’t even want to be there.

“Oh!” Junmyeon gasps, turning to take a better look at Sehun now that he recalls who Sehun is from some of the pictures Jongin has sent him, “You’re the mysterious hot friend who always has a mop of hair covering his eyes!”

The repercussions of his words only hits Junmyeon after he’s said it out loud. His cheeks reignite with flames the moment Sehun’s eyes meet his. It’s the weirdest thing ever, feeling warmth travel to every limb on his body alarmingly quickly, because it’s been forever since Junmyeon had blushed. Junmyeon knows he’s famous for his shamelessness, especially when it comes to interacting with people younger than him, so he fails to fathom why he’s blushing after complimenting Jongin’s (probably) same-aged _friend_.

“I… I think you’re handsome, yeah.” Junmyeon stutters lamely.

For a split of a second, Junmyeon swears he sees Sehun’s lip twitch into a shy smile, but it’s gone the moment Sehun resumes staring at him.

“Thanks, I know. You’re not so bad yourself.” Sehun responds with a one-shouldered shrug.

If it’s not for Jongin’s steady grip on his shoulders, Junmyeon would’ve face planted onto the floor at Sehun’s bluntness. It’s not every day Junmyeon gets told _he doesn’t look so bad_. Steadying himself, Junmyeon grabs onto Jongin’s shoulder for support, earning a quizzical look from Jongin that he shrugs off by pursing his lips, avoiding Jongin’s eyes.

“Uh, thanks.” To Junmyeon’s surprise, Sehun smiles at this. His eyes disappear into literal perfect crescent moons, lips curling upwards in a teasing manner. Junmyeon’s jaw almost drops open—is Sehun _flirting_ with him?

Before he can say or do anything else, though, the smile disappears from Sehun’s face and the blond goes off to ask Jongin about something completely trivial and unrelated to Junmyeon.

The last time Junmyeon saw a tall man with a blond hair that looks this good, he’d broken Junmyeon’s heart.

*

If Jongin is great with children, Sehun is a children’s miracle worker.

Sehun, despite his ever-present blank face and seemingly limited amount of vocabulary, manages to be the person that convinces Rahee that the sun won’t kill her.

“Oh?” Sehun had asked as he slipped into his flip flops, lips pulled downwards with his brows raised challengingly, “Rahee isn’t coming with us to the beach today?”

This had been on the second day of his stay in the Kim household, and he’d been informed of Rahee’s current biggest fear in her life. Jungah had asked if Jongin and Sehun could take Raeon (and hopefully Rahee) out that day because her flight back home had been delayed for another day. Junmyeon, as per usual, was tasked to babysit Rahee indoors.

Rahee had been hiding behind the couch Junmyeon was sitting on, eyes glazed and lashes tear-stained after throwing a fit when Jongin had tried to coax her to go out and play in the sun. Junmyeon wanted to join in on the coaxing attempt, too, but he only got as far as stepping one foot into Rahee’s bedroom before his mother sent him a warning look that sent chills down his spine, so he’d quickly retreated into the living room in defeat.

“No,” Rahee’s voice was small and scratchy, but it was also somewhat composed as if she’s trying to tell Sehun that no matter what he says, she’s not going to budge. Her tiny hands were clutching onto the corduroy fabric of the couch so hard that her nails had turned white, and it made Junmyeon feel even worse than he already did for scaring his baby niece.

“Ah, I see. That’s fine, I didn’t think you’d be able to get ready fast enough anyway,” Sehun replied without skipping a beat as he dusted imaginary lint from his swimming trunks, “especially when you might not be able to walk in the sun forever anymore.”

Junmyeon had witnessed the way Rahee’s face twisted from a fearful look to a look of horror mixed in with a splash of confusion, and it made her grip on the corduroy fabric tighten. He looked at Jongin who was now looking at Sehun with a look of fascination. “What?”

Sehun glanced at Rahee sideways. “Didn’t you know? Only special people get to walk in the sun, Rahee-yah, and you were one of them. But since you refuse to do that anymore, I think you’re going to lose the power. It’s a pity, really, it’s a beautiful day—”

“I—I can get ready fast!” Rahee yelled over Sehun with a newfound determination in her voice, surprising both Junmyeon and Jongin. The toddler sprinted back into her bedroom before anyone could say anything, returning a minute later with her plastic pink bucket now filled with her beach toys.

Then just like that, Sehun had turned into the Kims’ favorite person of the summer.

Junmyeon’s mother never stopped gushing about the whole ordeal, even when the details change each time she tells the story all over again.

Sehun quickly became everyone’s favorite, except for Junmyeon’s, _obviously_. Because even if he doesn’t want to admit it, he’s slightly jealous of the amount of attention Sehun gets compared to him. He used to think that he hated being the center of attention every time he comes back home thanks to his track record of rarely ever showing up in their family events, but now that he’s stripped of the attention, he feels a little discarded.

The first week of Sehun’s stay then passes by uneventfully as Junmyeon busies himself with doing research for his soon-to-be-published paper on his study of the Three Kingdoms of Early Korea, sometimes helping his father around his shop, and occasionally making trips to the library when he craves a change of scenery. He does take delight in the free time Sehun’s diligence and overall willingness to help around the household had granted him, the way it allows Junmyeon more time for himself and actually skip out on beach days. But he kind of misses hanging out with Rahee and Raeon and especially Jongin, too.

There’s nothing he can do, though, except to accept the fate that has descended upon him and to lock himself inside his bedroom for days on end, feeling too awkward to ever attempt to invite himself into one of Raeon and Rahee’s activities when he’d been the first person to complain when it comes to babysitting them. It’s also impossible to insert himself randomly into Jongin and Sehun’s seemingly packed schedule (he once overheard them talking about some sightseeing and a lot of other outdoor-ish activities—it seems that Jongin is giving Sehun a tour of Santa Barbara or something), because he feels a little too old and a little too bothersome for the pair.

He’s also convinced himself that Sehun dislikes him for some reason he can’t quite pinpoint. The blond had never said any word to Junmyeon or even spared him a glance after the first and only encounter they had at the airport, and every time Junmyeon is around, Sehun always looks like he’d rather be somewhere else than next to him. Maybe it’s just Junmyeon’s gut feeling, but nothing changes the fact that they haven’t talked after a week of living under the same roof.

It doesn’t help that Junmyeon is overwhelmed by Sehun’s whole existence in general, thoughts always jumbled when their eyes accidentally meet in the middle of dinner or that one time when he walked into Sehun’s hard chest the moment he stepped out of the bathroom after his morning shower.

Sehun’s face makes it awfully hard for Junmyeon to decide if he dislikes him or not. On one hand, he knows he should dislike Sehun for taking his spotlight and being so unreasonably cold towards him, but every time he gets a glimpse of Sehun’s face, he feels all the negative emotions that had been festering inside of him wither away into nothing. Junmyeon wants to hate Sehun’s pretty face so, so much, but he can’t.

The chill air and the stable hum of his air conditioner is enough to keep Junmyeon company in his bedroom, anyway. The comfort of knowing he doesn’t have to suffer under the sweltering summer heat overpowers the jealousy he feels towards Sehun’s existence.

(Not really, actually, but Junmyeon likes to tell himself that.)

A prompt knock against his bedroom door cuts into his reverie, one that he doesn’t get to answer before his door is pushed open with no consideration of whatever state he might be in.

“Dinner’s ready,” Jongin announces loudly, half of his body heavily pressed onto Junmyeon’s bedroom door. He’s dressed in a polo shirt and some khaki shorts that Junmyeon hasn’t seen him wear in years.

Junmyeon throws a pillow at him. “What if I’d been changing?”

“So?” Jongin dodges it, cackling like the child he no longer is as he picks the pillow up and chucks it back at Junmyeon, “Since when do you care?”

“Since we have a guest, Jongin,” Junmyeon doesn’t forget to click his tongue in irritation for added effect, putting on a random shirt he finds draped over the small chair in front of his bed that is practically swallowed by dozens of clothes.

Jongin sends Junmyeon a knowing smirk that Junmyeon doesn’t like one bit. Jongin wiggles his shoulders, and then, “Sure.” He doesn’t forget to drag the vowels slowly.

“Why are you all dressed up for dinner, anyway?” Junmyeon pointedly ignores the annoying smirk Jongin has on his face, climbing out of his bed with a huff. He narrows his eyes at Jongin as he walks past him into the hall. The door to Junmyeon’s room closes with a soft click behind him, Jongin taciturn.

It’s not until they reach the end of their staircase that Jongin finally answers Junmyeon’s question. “I have a date, actually, so I’m not going to join you guys for dinner.”

Junmyeon immediately recalls Jungah telling him earlier today that she’s going to take the kids to watch the movies tonight after getting premiere tickets for some new Disney movie from her co-worker. The realization that there might be no one else left for dinner aside from him, Sehun, and his parents makes his heart skip a nervous beat, mind going into overdrive at the possibility of having to make small talk with Sehun.

“What? With who?” Junmyeon feels the color drain from his face when he spots Sehun already sitting on the dining table, looking very serious and very alone. Where the _fuck_ are his parents?

Jongin doesn’t say anything. Instead, he pats Junmyeon’s shoulder and yells loudly to nobody in particular that he’s leaving for his date, swiftly disappearing out the door right after. He does this all under a full minute, leaving Junmyeon at a loss for words, blinking dumbly to himself when he registers that Jongin has left the house.

The sound of Sehun clearing his throat pulls Junmyeon back into reality, shifting his eyes back into focus, back to staring at Sehun’s bored face that is now staring back at him.

“Ah,” Junmyeon forces a smile that he’s sure his face has translated into a grimace, “I’m just surprised—Jongin didn’t tell me he was seeing anyone.”

“He’s not.” The quickness of Sehun’s reply surprises Junmyeon. He half expected Sehun to not say anything to him like he always does, and now that the blond has opened his mouth, he suddenly forgets the way his tongue works. It’s unlike him to be so tongue-tied, and it makes him panic even more.

A beat of unpleasant silence settles between them until the sound of Sehun’s chair scraping against the tiled dining floor slices into it.

“Well?” Sehun’s eyebrows are raised, both palms now flat against the dining table as he rises to his full height, “Aren’t you going to join me?”

Sehun reminds Junmyeon of a predator like this, with every inch of his body dripping with intimidation, his blank face and his shoulders hunched behind him like that. His question sounds more like a command than a question, so Junmyeon finds himself complying quickly, walking towards the dinner table like a docile child.

“I—yes of course,” Junmyeon despises the way his voice comes out squeaky. Sehun picks a large empty bowl up from the dinner table as Junmyeon makes his way towards it, walking to the kitchen island for no valid reason Junmyeon could think of. Instead of trying to understand Sehun’s action, though, Junmyeon shifts his focus into staring at the rows of empty chairs around the dinner table in front of him, mind drawing a blank on where he should seat himself.

Normally, he would sit next to his parents and right across Jongin on the third chair from the left side of the table, but seeing as his parents are nowhere to be found, Junmyeon feels disorientated. His parents are _never_ late to dinner.

“Your parents went to the dentist,” Sehun says, as if reading his mind, placing a bowl of white rice onto the table— _oh_ , so that’s what he was doing. Junmyeon eyes Sehun’s hand around the bowl, following the trail of a lone vein up onto his arms—a pattern he notices now every time he looks at Sehun’s hand—and then onto his face, that turns out to be much closer than he anticipated it would be. Junmyeon finds himself taking a step back involuntarily. “So you can sit wherever.”

Jealousy settles at the bottom of Junmyeon’s stomach now that he knows his own parents didn’t even inform him of their dental appointment, but he reminds himself that he’s thirty-one, and that there are more pressing matters at hand like the fact that he naturally has to sit on the chair that’s directly across Sehun to not be rude. He’s not even hungry to begin with, and now he has to sit across Sehun while he eats food he doesn’t want to eat.

Great.

“Oh, who cooked the food, then?” Junmyeon ponders, pulling the chair across where Sehun is seated unwillingly. He’s sitting down when Sehun picks Junmyeon’s plate up and scoops a hearty amount of rice onto it, placing it back to its original place in front of Junmyeon, unspeaking.

“Your mom.” Junmyeon doesn’t appreciate the slightest lilt of sarcasm in Sehun’s answer. If Sehun had been one of his students, he definitely would fail him for that shitty answer. What he says next, though, takes Junmyeon by a pleasant surprise. “Eat well, hyung.”

It’s been so long since he last heard someone aside from Jongin call him _hyung_. All of his Korean friends are either his age or older, and he doesn’t even have much of them in the campus he’s teaching at. The sound of Sehun’s voice dragging the consonants and vowels of the word _hyung_ feels nice; nice enough to will away his previously unpleasant thoughts at Sehun’s constant poor wording choice.

Junmyeon’s voice is scratchy when he replies, “You too.”

Sehun nods in reply, and they let the silence engulf them, this time not awkward, occasionally peppered with the sounds of silverware clinking against their plates.

It’s not until Sehun finishes his first serving of rice that Junmyeon opens his mouth. “Wow, you really eat a lot.” He watches as Sehun scoop more rice into his plate when he himself haven’t even finished his serving.

Sehun makes a noise of acknowledgment, nodding at Junmyeon while his mouth is preoccupied with chewing his food. When he swallows, he manages with a curt, “Yeah.”

The way Sehun always answers Junmyeon’s question in haste still doesn’t sit well with him, especially when he knows Sehun never stops talking around Jongin, the children, or everyone else, really, except for him. The way it makes Junmyeon second-guess his every move around the boy bothers him a lot.

“Why are you so quiet around me, Sehun?” knows he’s going to regret asking the stupid question, but it flows out of his mouth before he could think twice on it.

The question doesn’t catch Sehun off guard at all. If anything, he looks like he’s been waiting for Junmyeon to ask him the question with the way he narrows his eyes at the older man blithely.

“You never initiated a conversation with me, so what did you expect?”

Shock would be an understatement to explain the way Junmyeon feels at Sehun’s response. Sehun really _does_ hate him.

“Oh,” Junmyeon swallows thickly. It seems like all he ever says to Sehun is a plethora of _Oh_ s and _Ah_ s and nothing more. “I see.”

*

Jongin notices the weird tension between Junmyeon and Sehun a couple of days later, cornering Junmyeon in the kitchen when the whole house is finally empty save for the two of them. Their parents and Jungah are out at work while Sehun had volunteered to drop the children off at the local daycare. Jongin and Sehun are going to drive to some sightseeing place Junmyeon don’t know of, while Junmyeon is going to do his research in the library.

“What’s up with you and Sehun?” Jongin really has the subtlety of a chainsaw. His hands are crossed under his chest and Junmyeon realizes he can’t escape the question when he feels the kitchen counter digging into his back from two different angles behind him.

“What do you mean?” Jongin rolls his eyes at Junmyeon’s poor attempt of dodging the question.

“Don’t think that I didn’t see how you retreated back into your bedroom hastily when you realized Sehun was eating breakfast downstairs just now and the way you awkwardly stopped talking when Sehun came downstairs for dinner yesterday.” Jongin badgers, now placing both of his hands on each side of the kitchen counter behind him.

For a millisecond, Junmyeon seriously contemplates on pushing Jongin off him and trying to make a run for the door as fast as he can, but he realizes that Jongin could (will) probably outrun him, and he knows how stupid he’d look if he gets caught by his little brother with his shirt pulled back by Jongin’s strong fists. It’s one thing if Jongin catches him mid-sprint inside their house, but it’s another thing if Jongin catches him on their front lawn, in front of their whole neighborhood.

He knows for a fact that Yixing Zhang whose house is right across theirs water his front lawn every day at this exact time.

“Your friend hates me,” Junmyeon yields, shoulders sagging as the words leave his mouth.

Out of all the things he’d expected Jongin would reply with, a laugh isn’t one of them. In front of him, uncomfortably closely and obnoxiously, Jongin cackles like a mad man.

“Hates? What makes you think that?” Jongin asks eagerly, eyes stretched way too wide for Junmyeon’s liking. Jongin looks a little crazed, and Junmyeon thinks he prefers the accusatory Jongin over this Jongin.

Junmyeon pushes Jongin’s chest with both of his hands to allow more space between them, very bothered by the proximity of Jongin’s excited face. “He… said some things that convinced me that he hates me.”

The volume of Jongin’s laughter only increases at his answer. Junmyeon lands a weak punch on his younger brother’s stomach to make him stop. It doesn’t work completely, but he succeeds in subsiding Jongin’s laughter into very loud giggles.

“Sehun doesn’t _hate_ you,” Jongin emphasizes on the word “hate” like Junmyeon isn’t supposed to understand what that means, “he thinks you’re hot, hyung.”

Junmyeon isn’t shocked. Not completely, anyway. Sure, he’s taken aback by the fact that Sehun isn’t straight like he automatically assumes everyone is, but his body doesn’t shut down like it always does when he’s in shock; his face doesn’t go slack, his heart doesn’t skip a beat, and his mouth doesn’t gape against his own will, his body not unmoving.

Instead, Junmyeon feels his heart picking up its pace, his own mouth threatening to curl up into a smile, pools of warm settling on the bottom of his stomach as he lets the information sink into his brain. Wait— _fuck_. He’s definitely _not_ pleased with this information. Why would he be.

He registers the fact that he’s way too thrilled at this new discovery for his own liking when he sees Jongin’s smile morph into a full-blown smirk at the sight of his face, his brows raised so high it might just disappear into his hairline.

“Hold on—you think he’s hot _too_.” Jongin drags each syllable accusatorily, brows wriggling obnoxiously like earthworms after a fresh shower of rain. Junmyeon doesn’t like it one bit, and he wipes the unsolicited smile that has formed on his face.

“I don’t,” Junmyeon counters snippily, looking away from Jongin’s stupid gaze, “I mean, he’s fine. He looks good. Handsome, even. But too young for me. Too—”

“Whoa, I never said anything about dating him. You saying that makes me think that you _want_ —” Jongin’s sentence gets cut off by a punch to his stomach. He doubles over in pain, laughing hard even as he wraps his arms around his stomach to protect himself from another blow.

“Oh my god, hyung,” Jongin wheezes, wiping a tear from his eye dramatically, “You don’t have to be so shy over—”

“Jongin,” Junmyeon aims to sound authoritative, but it comes out desperate instead. It also doesn’t help that he can feel heat creeping into the collar of his shirt. “Please stop.”

To his surprise, it works. Jongin’s laughter slows gradually, mouth easing into a smile as he straightens his back and rises back to his full height. His eyes are warmer now, brows and shoulders relaxing simultaneously.

“Sorry. It’s just—” Jongin pauses, searching for Junmyeon’s eyes earnestly, “I’ve never gotten the chance to tease you over stupid things like crushes. At least not after that bastard Kris Wu.”

The wince Junmyeon experiences is full-bodied. The mention of the name naturally resurfaces the bitter memories Junmyeon had tried so hard to forget, but there’s nothing that he can do except to let it wash through him because he knows that Jongin didn’t mean to make him feel so awful. It’s apparent in the way Jongin’s face falls right after he mentions Kris’ name.

“It’s fine,” Junmyeon waves a nonchalant hand at Jongin. It’s funny how he’d been so nervous and giddy just a few seconds ago until Jongin had mentioned Kris’ name. It’s not even ten in the morning yet, and he already feels so spent from the rollercoaster of emotions he’d been hurled into.

Jongin still pouts, though, lower lip jutting out like it always used to when he didn’t get what he wanted back when Junmyeon was still in high school, where he’d been subjected to the responsibility of giving Jongin some pocket money because he was finally old enough to get a part-time job at Starbucks. “Sorry, hyung.”

Junmyeon rolls his eyes and stretches to make a mess of Jongin’s hair. “It’s okay.”

“Well, now that it’s settled you’re not pissed at me, I can’t help but point out how you didn’t deny anything when I said you had a crush on Sehun.” Jongin resumes, smugness back in full force.

“Jongin Kim—”

“Well if it isn’t the aforementioned Mr. Oh!” Jongin intercepts Junmyeon in English, eyes looking past Junmyeon now, visibly beaming. Junmyeon turns around to follow Jongin’s line of sight to see Sehun toeing off his shoes in the entrance hallway, looking more unimpressed than he usually is, probably thanks to Jongin’s corny greeting.

Sehun looks up to squint at Jongin disparagingly, and Junmyeon can almost hear the “what?” in Sehun’s face. Jongin must’ve heard it too, because he starts talking again.

“Hyung here was just talking about how he could take you out today instead of me after hearing that Yoona noona asked me out on a lunch date today. Wouldn’t that be fabulous?”

Junmyeon cringes. _Who the hell is_ Yoona _and who the hell still uses the English word_ fabulous _?_

The implication of Jongin’s sentence then enters Junmyeon’s brain slowly—at first—and then abruptly. Junmyeon is still thinking about how lame Jongin is for using the word “fabulous” when he’s hit with the realization that he’s now responsible to chaperone Sehun in his Santa Barbara tour of the day or some shit. He also realizes that he’s virtually left with no room to argue or complain about it because doing so would only make him look rude.

“Sure.” Sehun deadpans, as Junmyeon had expected, eyes not even meeting his as he makes his way to the kitchen.

“What do you say, hyung? You’re not seriously thinking of ruining my chance with Yoona noona, right?” at this point, Jongin’s smile looks deranged. Junmyeon is reminded again of how he doesn’t even know who the fuck Yoona is—but he can’t ask now, not when it would make him look like a bad brother in front of Sehun.

Junmyeon tries to glare Jongin surreptitiously. “I guess I can push off my library visit to tomorrow.”

“If you don’t want to, it’s fine, you know,” Sehun says drily. This time, though, his face isn’t void of any emotion like it typically does. His brows are pinched—it’s the first time Junmyeon ever sees the blond display any sign of discomfort, and the guilt that overcomes him is immediate.

“What? No! I’d love to. Really, it’s my pleasure to show you around Santa Barbara. This town is filled with gems waiting to be uncovered by the likes of you,” Junmyeon waves both of his hands in front of him frantically. For some reason, he’d spoken in English. He knows he must have sounded dumb when he sees Sehun tilt his head in slight confusion, but there’s no going back when he’s already used his professor voice in front of Sehun now.

Jongin whistles happily.

“Okay, now that that’s settled, I’m going to go. You two can decide who gets to drive the 2008 Prius because I’m taking the nice car. Toodles!” Jongin pats Junmyeon’s back dismissively, walking out of the kitchen airily with both of his hands shoved into his jean pockets, disappearing up the stairs with nonchalance in his every step.

Junmyeon reminds himself to hit the back of Jongin’s head the next chance he gets to.

“Ready whenever you are,” Sehun shrugs, with both his shoulders and his hands, lips curled downwards with his brows raised. It’s the most expression Junmyeon’s seen Sehun exhibit in front of him, and he decides that he kind of likes it.

“I’ll go get the car keys.”

*

The Prius’ steering wheel is warm and slightly damp to Junmyeon’s touch, but he smooths his hands along the rugged leather anyway because he realizes he misses driving this particular car—it’s what Junmyeon had driven around back in college when he was still piss poor and unable to afford his own car. Even the air freshener is the exact same brand he used to use on this car back in college, and he knows it must be one of Jungah’s stunts. She’s always had a knack for sentimental shit like that. Junmyeon knows for a fact that his family has switched to some other brand for all their other cars in Santa Barbara.

It feels a little weird to have Sehun sitting next to him in the passenger seat of a car that stops time for Junmyeon; a little too intimate for him. Junmyeon quickly shakes off the thoughts in his head away.

Sehun has his legs twisted into a pretzel next to him on the passenger seat, eyes fixed on the road in front of them. His shoulders take up the entirety of the seat’s backrest and then some, and he has one hand tapping his fingers impatiently against the skin of his knees while the other rests on the door handle snugly.

“Uh, so, where do you want to go?” Junmyeon starts nervously, catching Sehun’s eyes from the rearview mirror, his own fingers mirroring Sehun’s, tapping against the steering wheel.

Sehun hums thoughtfully. Turning to face Junmyeon, he answers, “I don’t really have anywhere in mind. Where do _you_ wanna go?”

The clarity and the proximity of Sehun’s face to his nearly makes Junmyeon jump. It only dawns upon him now that he’s never really seen Sehun up close like this, with his face fully illuminated by the harsh unfiltered sunlight, and it makes his heart skip around twenty beats. Sehun, even with his imperfections highlighted by the bright, yellow sun, is simply gorgeous. And so, so incredibly young.

“I thought you and Jongin had something planned for the day,” Junmyeon says, voice pitchy. He clears his throat right after.

“ _Jongin_ had something planned for the day. He’s the one that does all the planning down while I just sit back and enjoy the ride,” Sehun corrects him, thankfully leaning back into his chair to allow space between him and Junmyeon. Junmyeon lets out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. “Do you mind if I use the AUX, by the way?”

Junmyeon is a little surprised of how casual and easy Sehun is being around him right now, despite being practical strangers. Nodding wordlessly, Junmyeon finds his eyes following Sehun’s movements dumbly as he reaches for the AUX cable, hands deftly untangling it from the mess it had been before. He plugs it onto his phone swiftly before looking up at Junmyeon again with a questioning glance.

“What? Go wild,” Sehun tells him, doing a half-hearted jazz hand with his free hand as his other hand scrolls through his phone, eyes trained on the screen. It’s like the dinner conversation never even happened.

“What do you mean?” Junmyeon asks sheepishly, well aware of how stupid he must sound to Sehun for not understanding his reference.

Miraculously, Sehun chuckles at his question. “I mean choose wherever you want to go. I don’t mind. It doesn’t really have to be a tourist spot, by the way. Santa Barbara is already beautiful even in the non-touristy spots. Most of the time I’m just humoring Jongin’s some kind of need to impress me with how beautiful his city is. I already know it is.”

The warmness in Sehun’s tone when talking about Jongin is riveting. It makes him sound far from the bitch Junmyeon had pictured him to be. Maybe Jongin is right—maybe Sehun really doesn’t hate him. Junmyeon feels quite dumb now for getting so ticked over the short exchange they had a few nights ago.

Next to him, Sehun plays a chill indie song that Junmyeon obviously don’t recognize, and the bass from the music fills the car with a reverberating hum.

“I know a place,” Junmyeon says slowly, speaking as the thoughts come into his mind, slightly stunned by the amount of words Sehun just said to him. He takes a deep breath, putting his hand on top of the gear stick. “But it’s kind of lame. Not really summery, so if—”

“I don’t care, hyung,” Sehun says, looking at him blankly. Before Junmyeon’s mind can panic and worry about possibly annoying Sehun, the kid smiles. It’s a small smile—barely even there, but it’s one nonetheless, and it’s directed at _him_ , and Junmyeon has never really been the recipient of Sehun’s smiles. Naturally, his heart skips a beat.

It’s not his fault that Sehun is so pretty.

“Fine, but don’t complain when we get there,” Junmyeon attempts to sound gruff, failing miserably when the song selection changes abruptly into 2NE1’s I Don’t Care. He catches the smile on Sehun’s face from the rearview mirror stretch into a grin. Annoyingly, it makes his heart stutter in his chest, and he presses his lips together to stop himself from grinning back at Sehun.

“I’ll be the judge of that, hyung.”

*

The drive takes almost two hours thanks to Sehun’s request for a stop at the nearest McDonalds, insisting that he hasn’t had any breakfast even when Junmyeon clearly saw him wolf down Junmyeon’s mother’s breakfast waffles just a few hours ago.

Under the course of two hours, Junmyeon learns enough about Sehun to destroy his previous assumptions about the boy. It’s fascinating how Sehun unfolds so easily to him, how conversation flows smoothly between them like water despite their age difference and every other common denominator that doesn’t exist between them.

He learns that Sehun is on his last year of college, and that he majors in Economics because his dad is _such_ an Asian, while he minors in dance. Contrary to Junmyeon’s preconceived notion of Sehun and Jongin meeting through college or some story along the lines of that, Sehun had actually met Jongin in a dance class a few summers ago where they had instantly clicked after finding out that they went to the same college despite Sehun being a freshman and Jongin a senior. Junmyeon finds the way Sehun had described Jongin as someone he knew he’d instantly be friends with interesting, because all Junmyeon could previously see was the striking differences between the two of them.

Junmyeon also learns that Sehun talks a _lot,_ and that he easily gets excited by his own stories from the way his shoulders move with his every word and the way he breaks into giggles before he can even get to the climax of his anecdotes. Sehun tells Junmyeon that he has an older brother that lives in Seoul in between mouthfuls of his egg McMuffin, feet propped against the car’s dashboard (after asking for Junmyeon’s permission, of course) eyes crinkled into mischievous crescent moons as he explains how his brother is the biggest benefactor that had shaped his bratty personality.

“Miho,” Sehun pronounces his brother’s name with an American accent. He’s finishing the last bite of his French fry when continues in English, “is so fucking whipped for me. I don’t know why—maybe it’s because I’m a decade younger than him, but I…” Junmyeon starts to tune out after that, his head filled with thoughts of how unreal Sehun is for being able to pull of looking as good as he does even when he’s talking with his mouth full of food.

After Sehun finishes talking about himself, he lulls his own self to sleep with his odd song choices of fluffy K-pop girl group songs that he tells Junmyeon _will_ make him sleep. Sehun sets up a game with himself where he swears he won’t fall asleep to old b-side tracks of Girls Generation’s debut album, telling Junmyeon to wake him up if he does, but Junmyeon never does.

Instead, Junmyeon takes the time to enjoy the soft indie songs from Sehun’s playlist that starts to play again after the K-pop songs run out, giving himself time to sort his befuddled thoughts and feelings now that he gets the gist of the kind of person Sehun really is. He’s ashamed to admit that he’d been wrong—so, so wrong all along. Sehun is a really, really pleasant human being to be around with.

It makes him wonder why Sehun had been so closed off from him previously.

*

“Sehun,” Junmyeon decides to wake Sehun up with a gentle stir after contemplating long and hard on how he should wake Sehun up. Sehun has his whole body curled into a ball in his seat with his face squished against the seatbelt, mouth agape. “We’re here.”

Sehun’s mouth closes with an alarming speed the moment he stirs awake, hands quickly flying to cover his face. Junmyeon finds it such a waste of beauty for Sehun to cover his face like that.

“You didn’t wake me,” Sehun mumbles through his fingers, rubbing his eyes slowly, before looking up at Junmyeon blearily.

“You looked so peaceful sleeping, I didn’t have the heart to wake you,” Junmyeon raises both of his hands up defensively, killing the car’s engine right after. Sehun blows a raspberry as he unbuckles his seatbelt.

“Not an acceptable reason, but fine.” Sehun shoots a quick glare at Junmyeon before looking out the car windows, eyes scouring the vicinity, running a hand through his hair. It’s riveting how easily Sehun makes himself comfortable around new people. Junmyeon, in a million years, would never glare at a person he’s only ever interacted for a cumulative total of three hours. “Where are we, anyway?”

Panic emerges in Junmyeon’s chest. “Um, we’re a winery in Santa Maria? I know it’s not exactly Santa Barbara and it might be a little boring—wait, you’re legal right?”

“I’m twenty-three. I’m more than just legal,” Sehun rolls his eyes.

Junmyeon still pales a little, nevertheless. Hearing it loud and clear like this feels sobering; Sehun is young enough to be one of his students.

“Hyung, relax. I know I’m going to have fun,” Sehun reaches over to pat Junmyeon’s hand gingerly. When he retracts his hand, Junmyeon feels the skin tingle where Sehun has touched him. He watches as Sehun unlocks the door and steps out of the car, following suit when Sehun turns around to face him with a quirked eyebrow.

Junmyeon is quickly reminded of how tall Sehun is compared to him by the way he has to match his steps with Sehun’s large strides when he joins Sehun who’s staring at the minimalistic building in front of them after swiftly locking the car. Next to him, Sehun has one hand on his hip while the other one shields his eyes from the afternoon sun, eyes still looking around curiously to absorb their surroundings. They’re walking up a white-stone path that curves into the main building, the panoramic landscape of rows and rows of vineyard behind the building getting clearer with every step they take.

The air is warm around them, but not hot enough to make Junmyeon want to sprint into the nearest building with an air conditioning just yet.

“Wow, this place is a beaut.” Sehun’s comment makes Junmyeon’s heart swell with something akin to pride. Junmyeon has been going to this winery ever since he turned twenty-one, before it was as grand and as popular as it is now, and he knows the family that owns it like his own. Junmyeon hums in contented agreement.

They make their way towards the building in shared silence. When they reach the entrance door, Sehun holds it open for Junmyeon with a playful smile, one that makes Junmyeon’s heart race stupidly. He almost rolls his eyes if it’s not for the shrill scream that shakes him to his core. When he turns around to pinpoint the perpetrator, Jongdae is in the middle of jumping out of the receptionist table, hands already outstretched to smother Junmyeon in a hug.

“Myeon!” Jongdae yells into his ear as soon as he traps Junmyeon into a crushing hug, “It’s been too long!”

Sehun raises his brows questionably at Junmyeon who just smiles at him apologetically in return, patting Jongdae’s back softly. They earn the attention of a large group of middle-aged white women standing a few feet away from them.

“I’ve been busy,” Junmyeon says when Jongdae lets go, looking at Jongdae with a pointed look as he rubs his probably now-bruised arms. He sends an apologetic smile to the group of women, before glaring at Jongdae again.

“Yeah, right,” Jongdae rolls his eyes very slowly, completely ignoring his own customers. His gaze then flickers to Sehun who’s standing behind Junmyeon, face immediately splitting into a grin. “Oh, and who do we have here? It’s unlike you to bring someone new here.”

If anyone who knows Jongdae was told to describe him with one word, most of them would probably choose the word _flirtatious_. Flirting comes to Jongdae naturally like Korean to Junmyeon does, and after years of knowing the only son Widaehan Podo Winery’s owner has, Junmyeon prides himself in being undisputedly immune to Jongdae’s offenses. So it’s frightening for Junmyeon to feel unpleasant coldness spread through his veins at Jongdae’s blatant flirting, breath hitching at the sight of Jongdae’s twinkly eyes directed towards Sehun.

“This is Sehun, Jongin’s friend that’s staying over for the summer,” Junmyeon hesitantly steps sideways to make room for Sehun.

“Sehun Oh,” Sehun offers his hand, but Jongdae lunges forward to hug him instead. The move takes Sehun by surprise, but he melts quickly into Jongdae’s touch, and Junmyeon immediately feels something uneasy settle on the bottom of his stomach. He clears his throat to bring the attention back to himself, feeling a little childish for doing so.

“I’m Jongdae Kim,” Jongdae chirps happily as he releases Sehun from his hug, smile turning coquettish in a flash, “People usually call me Chen around here because it’s easier to pronounce, but you can totally call me tonight.” He finishes his sentence with a firm grip on Sehun’s bicep.

Sehun laughs. It sounds more like a giggle and Sehun laughs in the sort-of-broken way where it’s half noise and half silence, but Junmyeon thinks it sounds terribly nice. It’s the first time he’s heard Sehun fully laugh, and it totally doesn’t bother Junmyeon how easily laughter comes to Sehun in the face of Jongdae when he’d constantly looked constipated in front of him for the past week. Totally.

Sehun doesn’t flinch away from the touch or the advance at all. Junmyeon expects Jongdae to immediately apologize like he always does when he flirts with new people, but it never comes. Instead, Jongdae reverts his gaze from Sehun onto Junmyeon in a heartbeat, taking Junmyeon by surprise for the nth time since he’s stepped into the building.

“Relax, Myeon, I’m just kidding. You don’t have to look so pinched like that,” Jongdae snickers, patting Sehun’s bicep evidently. Junmyeon finds it hard to look away from the harmless interaction, peeved at himself for being so bothered over something so trivial. He files his feelings under his brotherly concern, because obviously he feels obligated to protect Sehun from Jongdae’s predatory acts since he’s so young—even younger than Jongin’s age. _Obviously_.

“I’m not—”

“Sure, sure, sure, sure,” it’s times like these when Junmyeon is reminded of why he never brings anyone new to the winery anymore. “Say what you want. But anyway, we’re kind of swamped today and unfortunately that means I can’t keep you guys company,” Jongdae pauses to wink at Sehun, “and since you didn’t call to make a reservation for the wine tour, I’m assuming you’re just here for a table with your usual choices?”

Junmyeon shakes his head. “Not really, no. I mean, I’m not here for the tour, but I’d like a few options from the tasting menu since I brought Sehun along.”

It’s almost as if a switch has been flipped inside of Jongdae, professionalism seeping back into his demeanor speedily. “I see. I’ll get your table ready, then.” He turns around abruptly, yelling for someone to prepare a table for Junmyeon and Sehun. “Julie will take care of you guys. Don’t miss me too much, okay?”

“Okay, Tonight hyung,” Sehun manages to sneak a reply before Jongdae moves to tend the group of women that’s now sending them dirty looks for being prioritized over them. It earns him a giggle from the man, and Junmyeon switches his gaze from the retreating figure to Sehun with a scandalized look. Sehun just shrugs with a thin smile on his face.

Silence rejoins them.

Half a minute later, they’re approached by a tiny blond woman who introduces herself as Julie and as their server for the day. As they make their way to their table located at the back of the building, Julie quickly fills in the gaps of silence that had formed between Junmyeon and Sehun with words Junmyeon have memorized at the back of his head. This part usually bores Junmyeon when he brings someone else along with him—it’s all introductory wine stuff Junmyeon already knows by heart—but it’s different with Sehun.

The way Sehun’s eyes widen and the way his entire body moves along to match his animated hands when he pipes with questions in between Julie’s explanations has Junmyeon completely hooked, like a child would to a TV when they discover new cartoon show, half-excited but mostly happy that they’ve found something new that makes them _feel_ new things. Most of the time when Junmyeon tries to lure a new person into the wine-loving hole he’s fallen into, they get bored after the first few paragraphs of their wine tour and end up making both of them leave early to appease for the wasted time with other more exciting things like going to a hip café or play laser tag in the nearest mall they could find.

(He’s not talking about Jongin at all.)

It’s not like Junmyeon brings a lot of new people here enough to be able to make judgments of how much better of a companion Sehun is compared to the others; the first person had regrettably been Kris, the second Jongin, the third Luhan (which he also regrets to this day because he’s never going to hear the end of his lame wine jokes), and the last was his mother that he’d brought here on a pinch when he’d forgotten to give her a mother’s day present. Her mother had gotten too drunk and ended up spending more than a thousand dollars on wines with pretty names that she claimed she’ll finish at home. Clearly, she ended up never touching it after that fateful day, and sometimes, his mother still tells people stories of how “Junmyeon, my first born, got me drunk in the middle of the day and made me spend a thousand dollars without ever paying me back” like it’s everyone’s business.

Also, Jongdae had shamelessly flirted with _all_ of them. Even Junmyeon’s mother.

But now that more than five minutes have passed since they’d arrived at the winery’s main building, Junmyeon is convinced that Sehun is the best partner he’s ever taken up here to date. It shows in more than just the way he listens attentively to what Julie is saying; it also shows in the way he tries to look at Junmyeon after every question he’s asked, as if trying to include Junmyeon into the equation or simply just making sure that Junmyeon’s head is with them right here right now.

“That should be all, really,” Julie concludes when they arrive at their outdoor table already presented with a variety of wine choices laid on top of it. They’re brought to a small table placed the furthest out from the building, right before the terrace flooring comes to an end and the land under it comes to a shallow slope. “I assume that Mr. Kim here would want to have the honor of introducing you to each of these wines—right? Mr. Jongdae had informed me of your request for this beforehand.”

Sehun whips his head to look at Junmyeon as he takes a seat on the chair diagonally next to his, face hopeful at the idea of Junmyeon being his substitute wine guide for the day. His eyes widen eagerly as he waits for Junmyeon to respond to Julie’s question accordingly. Junmyeon’s gaze flickers from Julie’s relaxed smile to Sehun’s expectant one, heart thudding, a little scared at the prospect of boring Sehun with his catatonic words.

In the end, it’s Julie who decides the answer for him by placing the corkscrew onto Junmyeon’s side of the table, bowing out before disappearing back into the building. Beside him, Sehun waits patiently for Junmyeon to make a move.

“For the record, I didn’t request Jongdae _anything_ ,” Junmyeon begins, automatically reaching for the lone corkscrew before he takes a seat.

“I know,” Sehun chirps happily in reply, following Junmyeon’s hand movements with his eyes attentively. Junmyeon can feel Sehun’s gaze burning holes into the skin of his forearms with how intensely he’s staring at his every movement. The intensity in Sehun’s gaze is slowly starting to push him out of kilter, so Junmyeon fishes with, “Isn’t the view in front of us just gorgeous?”

It’s not a lie. Not to Sehun, at least.

“Yeah, it is.”

The open sky before them is painted in a single shade of periwinkle blue, the expanse of the endless vineyards under it a bright shade of green that looks nearly surreal. It serves as a pretty contrast to the endless, blue sky, and no clouds seem to provide a barrier in between the pale, yellow sun and the earth as far as Junmyeon’s eyes can see. Normally, he’d hate a day where the sun is fully exposed like this—the cool wine is the only redeeming quality during the sunniest summer days—but he takes one look at Sehun’s face and thinks his love for wine has found itself a contender.

With Sehun here, the overexposed scenery around him doesn’t bother him too much.

Only after he’s convinced that Sehun is enthralled by the early afternoon sky in front of them that Junmyeon gets to work. He starts with the low-bodied white wine first, picking it up from the row of wine bottles displayed in front of him gently, positioning the tip of the corkscrew he has on his hand a little off center on the cork. As he pushes down into the corkscrew, he feels excitement bubbling inside of him at the anticipation of finally having a glass of wine again, turning the corkscrew with a little more force than necessary.

“You’re very excited about this, aren’t you?” Sehun inquires as Junmyeon pulls up on the handle of the corkscrew. Junmyeon thanks his trained hands for not jumping in surprise at Sehun’s sudden question. The cork dislodges from the bottle with a satisfying pop.

“Of course I am,” Junmyeon says lightly, a little surprised that Sehun can see the excitement bubbling inside of him despite his poker face, pouring the wine onto each of their glasses in one swift, gentle motion. They watch quietly as the liquid slowly fill the glass up. “I hope you’re excited about this, too.”

“I am,” Sehun replies easily. Junmyeon hates how bare-minimum he is when it comes to people who like wine—he hates how his heart ticks at Sehun’s easy answer. It shouldn’t be this exciting for him to find someone who’s simply open to the idea of enjoying wine as a hobby. His mind suddenly flits to Luhan, immediately reminded of his shitty wine jokes, and Junmyeon thinks he should really get new friends.

Chasing away the thought of Luhan and his shit jokes away from his head, Junmyeon hands Sehun his glass. Junmyeon then dives into an explanation of what kind of wine is currently inside both of their glasses, hesitation withering away with every word he says, feeling more and more confident like the professor he’s supposed to be thanks to Sehun’s axiomatic fascination.

Both of them down their own drinks after Junmyeon’s explanation, and Sehun’s brows knits and unknits as his mind processes the series of flavors his tongue had just been subjected to. It’s still a little odd for Junmyeon to experience Sehun like this, face extremely animated to the point it’s somewhat comical, when he’s only ever seen Sehun sport a stone-cold face for the past week, but it’s pleasant, too—endearing, even—and it makes a pleasant warmth bloom at the center of his chest.

“You like it?” Junmyeon asks, intrigued. It tastes just as good as Junmyeon remembers, the liquid cool and smooth against his throat, but it might not appease Sehun’s palate as much as it did his. Sehun doesn’t stop drinking until his glass is nearly empty, and Junmyeon doesn’t have the heart to slow him down with the way Sehun hums pleasing sounds from the back of his throat with every sip he takes.

Settling down his glass onto the table, Sehun nods. “Honestly, I don’t know if I’m just an uncultured swine, but that tasted nothing like the cheap eight-dollar wines Baekhyun used to serve in his frat parties.”

Junmyeon has no idea who Baekhyun is, but laughter bubbles in Junmyeon’s throat anyway. “That’s really nice to hear.”

“I loved it, hyung.” Sehun adds, smiling sweetly. Junmyeon feels a little breathless.

“So,” Sehun chirps, eyes twinkling at Junmyeon as he settles his own glass onto the table, “This question is cliché as fuck, but. Tell me about you? I’ve talked your ear off about myself. It’s your turn now.”

How in the world did Junmyeon ever come to the conclusion that Sehun hated him?

“I…” Junmyeon trails, unsure of where to start. It’s been a long time since someone had asked him the question, and he’s no longer in his early twenties now, no longer able to talk about the dreams he aspires to have because he’s already arrived at the age where the importance of having dreams pale in comparison to what he actually does for a living to get his bills paid. On top of that, Junmyeon’s life is so unremarkable he doesn’t even know what to tell Sehun except for the fact that he’s a history professor. And he’s not a history professor because he exactly _wants_ to—he’s a history professor because people tell him he’s good at it and he ended up being stuck with the job.

“Don’t overthink it. I can feel you overthinking it, hyung. I’ll be more specific, then, um—what are your hobbies?” It’s definitely not endearing how hard Sehun is trying right now to make conversation with Junmyeon. Thankfully, it’s a question Junmyeon can answer.

“I like… reading. Uh, traveling, I think?” Junmyeon is reminded of how long it’s been since he’s last travelled somewhere significant. Looking at Sehun’s blank face, he hurriedly adds, “and wine tasting. Sorry it’s not interesting—I really thought I’d have more at the top of my head but I’ve been so caught up with work lately, and, yeah.”

Sehun blank face softens, chuckling. Junmyeon’s stomach does a gentle flip. “Why are you apologizing? Wine tasting is cool, too. How’d you come to like it, anyway?”

“It’s stupid, really,” Junmyeon waves a careless hand at Sehun, evasive. Sehun puckers his lips. “Try me.”

Junmyeon narrows his eyes at Sehun, which earns him a raised a brow in return.

Sighing, Junmyeon tries. “I watched this wine documentary on TLC back when I was in high school that I ended up obsessing about. So the weekend I turned twenty-one, I dragged myself to the nearest winery I could find on google—which is here—” he pauses to make gestures with his arms, “and I never really actively searched for any other places aside from here. That’s why Jongdae and I are so close—he’s worked here since he was like, eighteen? Because his mother told him to, and never really studied after that because he knows he’s eventually going to inherit the winery. It just… happened, I guess.” Junmyeon pauses to watch Sehun’s response. “OK, it’s boring, isn’t it?”

Sehun groans. “No it’s not, hyung. You know you don’t have to be interesting all the time, right? I liked how—” he looks up thoughtfully, “honest you were? With your explanation, I mean. Sometimes people try to make wine tasting—or anything they like, really—seem like such a prestigious hobby, like. It’s not always the case. Sometimes you just like things for no reason at all, and that’s fine. Not everything has to have a cosmic meaning to it.”

Junmyeon can feel his heart physically expand inside his chest at Sehun’s words. His heart feels a lot like it usually does at the sight of Rahee and Raeon—full and incredibly warm. He really didn’t expect Sehun to say anything as thoughtful as he just did, and he’s now lost on what to say in return that won’t sound foolish.

So, he settles with adding another trivia Sehun probably won’t care about, “Oh, and this was also the first place I’d brought Kr—one of my friends here and they said it was cool, so. Yeah.”

If Sehun caught the slip of Junmyeon’s tongue, he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he scoots his chair closer towards the table, propping his elbow onto the flat surface of the table and chin on top of his palm. He watches Junmyeon’s every move like a hawk. Or a curious child, Junmyeon can’t decide between the two.

“Just one friend?” Junmyeon really can’t bring himself to be annoyed at Sehun’s endless interrogation by the way his eyes twinkle with innocent curiosity every time he throws him another question.

“Not exactly,” Junmyeon scratches his right brow, “I had Jongin come here with me when he turned twenty-one. A couple of friends, too, and the last one had been my mom. All of them but one told me that they’d never return here, though.” He adds a chuckle quickly to water down the bitterness in his voice.

Sehun digs his chin into his palm, squishing his mouth upwards into a plushy pout thoughtfully, brows furrowing together in distaste. “It’s not Jongin’s fault that he’s an airhead sometimes, but for the rest of the people you brought here, shame on them, really. This shit is actually fun.” Looking up at Junmyeon’s face, he backpedals, “I meant the word “shit” in a good context, by the way.”

Sehun’s words makes Junmyeon smile into his glass as he takes a generous sip from his glass. “I know.”

“So,” Sehun leans back into his chair lazily, crossing his arms under his chest, right cheek pressed against his own shoulder, “surely… ten years of this would have turned you into a wine expert, right? Did you get a sommelier certificate or something?”

Had Sehun been one of his students, he would have answered their question passive aggressively by now in hopes of stopping their excessive questioning. But with Sehun, it feels nice to have someone be so interested in getting to know him. Junmyeon can’t resist the smile that keeps returning to his face so easily.

“I like to think of myself as a wine enthusiast,” he replies seriously, pauses to take the last sip from his glass, “the more I drink wine, the more enthusiastic I get.”

It takes a few seconds for Sehun to digest Junmyeon’s poor joke, and when it hits him, he looks stunned, at first. And then: “I can’t believe you just said that.” He bursts into a fit of giggles that eventually evolves into laughter, body going lax, pressing his forehead onto Junmyeon’s shoulder easily. The touch makes Junmyeon freeze instinctively, but he quickly relaxes when he realizes it’s not unwelcome, the skin on his shoulder tingling to the beat of Sehun’s breathy giggles against the fabric of his shirt.

The sound of Sehun’s laughter makes the blood under his skin hum pleasantly. His body feels warm all over.

“I laughed not because it was funny,” Sehun says when he regains his composure, sitting up straight again. The blatant mockery doesn’t faze Junmyeon, it’s the loss of his skin against Junmyeon’s shoulder that feels almost disappointing. “I laughed because you’re Jongin’s brother and it would be rude not to laugh. I have a feeling you had a lot of practice with that line.”

Junmyeon is still thinking about Sehun’s face pressed against his shoulder when he answers, “Yeah, I’d been the recipient of Luhan’s wine jokes after the one time I brought him here, and that was six years ago, so I have enough practice.”

“Luhan?” Sehun parrots after him.

“He’s one of my childhood friends I grew up with here in Santa Barbara. But he moved to New York with me, and we work in the same campus together,” Junmyeon returns hurriedly, unsure as to why he’s being so defensive with his answer.

“Oh, I see. Jongin told me you’re a history professor—it’s kind of cool I guess to think that professors have hobbies like you do and have a life out of campus,” Sehun says flatly, but the teasing is palpable in his eyes. He’s getting braver with his teasing, and Junmyeon doesn’t know if he is ready to return the deed, so he just rolls his eyes.

“You talk about me like I’m senile,” Junmyeon smiles wryly, stretching to reach for the second bottle of wine they’re going to taste, “I’m not.”

“You’re not senile, hyung. You’re old.” Sehun says blithely, leaning forward again to study Junmyeon’s movements as he opens the new bottle of wine and pour some for both of them. This time, though, he pours less for himself.

“That’s the same thing,” Junmyeon chuckles, lifting his glass towards Sehun’s for a toast, where the younger clinks his glass happily against Junmyeon’s. This time, Sehun sips on it slower, but definitely not lesser.

“No it’s not. I meant you’re hot old. As in, DILF—or PILF? Professor I’d Like To Fuck?” if Junmyeon had been sipping on his wine at the same time Sehun said his sentence, it would’ve sent the precious liquid sputtering out of his mouth. The nonchalance in Sehun’s tone makes his heart beat aggressively against his ribcage, and he’s lost on what to say in reply to Sehun’s barbaric words.

Thankfully, he doesn’t have to say anything else because Sehun is already opening his mouth again. “I like this one better. It tastes sweeter, like, it makes my head spin. Even if you completely skipped the introductory thing you’re supposed to do.”

Sehun’s body rocks a little as he speaks, and Junmyeon notices how the skin on his neck is a shade deeper than it had been minutes ago, turning redder with each passing second, the same color travelling to his face and the rest of his body.

“Sorry about that,” titters Junmyeon, heart decelerating now that he’s established Sehun’s tipsiness. He snatches Sehun’s glass from where it’s placed on the table quickly, pouring the remaining liquid into his glass instead. “I’ll definitely explain the next one thoroughly. But you need to slow down with your drinking or I’m laying you off the next one. Your head isn’t supposed to spin just yet.”

Despite the pouting, Sehun nods obediently. “ _So_ controlling. But that’s okay, that’s hot, too.”

Junmyeon pretends he doesn’t hear Sehun’s words and pretends he can’t see how pink and inviting Sehun’s lips are jutted out adorably like that. Busying himself with unscrewing the next bottle of wine that he decides would be the last one seeing the state that Sehun is in, Junmyeon also tries to ignore the way heat is bleeding into his cheeks now at Sehun’s unabashed compliment.

“Say thank you, hyung, I just complimented you, you know,” Sehun whines, his Korean slightly accented now, and adds in English, “I just said that you’re hot. Hot as in fu—”

“Thank you, Sehun,” Junmyeon cuts over Sehun before he gives Junmyeon another heart attack with his unfiltered words. Pouring the wine from the newly opened bottle, Junmyeon immediately launches into a lengthy explanation of the said wine. Sehun listens attentively, brows furrowing together and nodding every once in a while, teeth digging into his lower lip as he waits for Junmyeon to finish with his introduction.

“This is the last one, okay? You’re already a little tipsy and I’ll never hear the end of it from my mom if I bring you home wine-drunk before the sun even sets.” Junmyeon says when he hands Sehun his glass, withholding the said glass from Sehun’s grasp until Sehun agrees with him. With a pout, Sehun nods sluggishly, and it’s only then Junmyeon lets him have his glass.

In one swift movement, Sehun downs his whole glass speedily. “Slow—”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Sehun laughs, waving his glass in front of Junmyeon’s face dangerously, “I just. Drink a lot and really, really fast when I’m nervous. I’m not going to die.”

“Nervous?” Junmyeon repeats after Sehun. “Why would you be nervous?”

Sehun rolls his eyes slowly, like Junmyeon is already supposed to know why he’s nervous, swaying slightly as he shifts his chair closer to Junmyeon. “Because of you, obviously,” he digs his index finger into Junmyeon’s chest, face red, “you’re Jongin’s brother, hyung. I’ve told him time and time again just how hot you are and then we finally get to meet.”

Junmyeon’s heart jumps to his throat, anyway. The way Sehun’s face is now all up in his personal space really isn’t helping either, and he has to press his palms against Sehun’s hard chest to create more space between them. Sehun moans unhappily at Junmyeon’s action, but complies anyway, leaning into his chair with a loud _hmph_ , hands crossed under his chest.

The sound of Sehun’s moan definitely didn’t make Junmyeon’s thoughts run wild. Not even for a split of second.

“Sehun—” Sehun cuts over Junmyeon before he can finish his sentence in English, “Yes, Professor Kim?”

 _Fuck._ It’s unnerving how Sehun’s words send shivers down his spine—when it’s what Junmyeon hears on a daily basis ever since he’s gotten his job as a professor. It’s not supposed to make heat pool on the bottom of Junmyeon’s stomach. It’s not supposed to do anything to him _at all._ Junmyeon really should’ve known better than to give Sehun that last glass of wine.

Swallowing thickly, Junmyeon pushes on bravely with the question he’s been meaning to ask but never had the guts to do so before, “Did I ever do something to upset you? I noticed that during the first few days of your stay here, you’d ignored me completely.”

“Oh my—oh my goodness gracious Lord.” Sehun stumbles through his words so quickly Junmyeon almost misses it completely. At this point, he’s switched to speaking English completely. He’s burying his face into his hands when he says, “Of course you’d think that—everyone does—everyone always thinks that I hate them because of my resting bitch face—” he looks up at Junmyeon in between his fingers. “But I don’t blame them, I once stared at a candid picture of me and got offended at my own facial expression, so. No. I don’t hate you, hyung—I was just—just shy. Jongin talks a lot about you, you know? He admires… he loves you so much. He talks about you so much like you’re his god and it kind of turned you into my god, too… and I don’t know where I was going with that. Anyway, yeah, I’m shy. If Jongin never talked to me first in our dance class, we wouldn’t even be friends right now. I just. Suck with words, you know? I suck. So sorry if I made you think that. I—”

“Sehun, it’s fine,” Junmyeon stops him, reaching over to put a hand around Sehun’s wrist. He doesn’t know what made him do that, but all he feels all the while Sehun explains himself is guilt, and all he wants is for Sehun to stop. “You need to stop drinking now, though, or you’re going to get shitfaced before the sun even sets.”

Sehun scowls. “I was rambling, wasn’t I, hyung? Sorry again.”

“No you’re not. You just had a lot to say and very little cognitive ability right now to churn the words out properly,” he finds himself rubbing circles on Sehun’s wrist with his thumb distractedly. Somehow, it succeeds in wiping the scowl away from Sehun’s face.

Sehun smiles up at Junmyeon lazily, drunkenly, apologetically—prettily. “I have no idea of what you just said. I think I’m drunk.”

“I think you are, too.” Junmyeon agrees. Sehun’s face is so red. He’s thankful that they’re at least an hour’s drive away from home—enough to at least get Sehun’s skin color back to normal—or he really is going to get an earful from his mother for getting Sehun drunk during the day. “We could leave now, if you want to.”

Sehun shakes his head slowly, wrist slipping away from Junmyeon’s hold as he leans back into his chair tipsily, “Nah. I’m having such a great time with you right now, I don’t think I want to go home just yet. I think we should chill here for a bit and…”

“And?” Junmyeon tries not to think of the loss of warmth in his hand.

Sehun looks up at Junmyeon blearily from the chair. “And thank you for today, hyung. I had a great time.” The look on Sehun’s face is so genuine that it simmers the heat sitting on the bottom of Junmyeon’s stomach into a warm, almost ticklish feeling—one that pleasantly spreads through his veins like electricity.

Too stunned to say anything in return, he watches as Sehun’s eyes droop slowly before closing completely.

“Sehun, are you sleeping?” Junmyeon tests. As if on cue, Sehun lets out a light snore, shifting in his chair to a more comfortable position.

Junmyeon watches Sehun sleep peacefully, deciding that he’ll wait for at least another hour for Sehun to sober up, transfixed at the beauty that is Sehun Oh, at the way the sun highlights his features in all the right places, both soft and sharp at all the perfect edges—listening to the way his chest rises and falls in a steady rhythm.

His gaze flickers to the scenery right next to Sehun.

Somehow, the bright summer sky doesn’t look as irritating as it always does when Junmyeon remembers just how bewitching Sehun looks under the sun.

*

Dinner that night is eventful.

Junmyeon, indeed, gets an earful from his mother for getting Sehun drunk during the day, thanks to Jongin who had ratted him out in the middle of their dinner to avoid answering questions about his lunch date with Yoona. Turns out, Yoona is the new manager in Junmyeon’s mother fro-yo shop that Jongin has had the hots for since last January. Jongin’s only gotten around to asking her out a few days ago.

In retrospect, both Junmyeon and Sehun thought that they had done a good job in sobering both of themselves up after their visit to the winery. Junmyeon had woken Sehun up after thirty minutes of his drunken nap, and they’d stopped by a local diner on their drive back home to stuff themselves with the greasiest foods they could find for an extra precaution, Junmyeon shucking off more and more about himself as they breeze through their food.

They talk about everything and nothing all at once, in between chews of food and radio silence when Sehun’s phone loses its signal and the flow of the steady stream of indie summer songs gets cut. Sehun talks about pop culture a lot, already making a list of movies Junmyeon should watch, building a Spotify playlist for Junmyeon to give a listen to when he has free time as he goes.

Sehun talks in a way that makes Junmyeon forget about the distance in age between them, and he makes Junmyeon enjoy the steady stream of new information more than he should.

For the first time in a long while, Junmyeon doesn’t feel like he’s sitting on the edge of a seat when he talks about himself, one foot not placed outside the door anymore, no longer ready to leave the conversation in case the recipient of his stories finds something weird about him and decides he’s not worth their time anymore. Sehun’s presence is… comforting.

By the time they’re back home, Sehun’s speech had returned to his usual fluent Korean. To their horror, though, Jongin finds out via a drunken voicemail that Sehun had recorded when Junmyeon had left to take care of the bill back in the winery.

It’s not supposed to be a big deal, really, getting drunk and all that remembering that they’re all grown men, but Junmyeon’s mother is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to what she decides is right or wrong. And getting her beloved guest drunk over day drinking, apparently, is very wrong in her dictionary.

The nagging doesn’t last long, though, by virtue of Sehun’s lovely charms and sweet words that finally convinced Junmyeon’s mother to a ceasefire. Jungah arrives home right after dinner ends, and the kids instantly fill the house with enough noise and energy that quickly whisks away Junmyeon’s mother’s attention.

Later, as Junmyeon and Jongin make their way up the stairs after finishing the dishes, Junmyeon is reminded of the promise he’s made to himself this morning and consequently hits the back of Jongin’s head before going on a lengthy scolding on why people hate whistleblowers. Jongin only laughs, nose crinkled adorably, muttering an insincere apology before disappearing into his bedroom right at the end of the hall.

A few seconds after Jongin’s bedroom door shuts with a resounding click, though, it opens again abruptly, making Junmyeon jump in surprise.

He’s about to turn around and scold Jongin for surprising him, only to meet Sehun’s face poking out in between the small space the opened door allows. He’s sporting a look of amusement, face splitting into a smile when their eyes meet.

Junmyeon is about to ask if he needed anything when Sehun cuts over him with a gentle, “Good night, hyung,” and Junmyeon’s heart loses its steady rhythm.

“Good night, Sehun,” Junmyeon replies with the same amount of gentleness, and Sehun sends him a fond smile before closing the door to his bedroom with a quiet click.

His heart beats loudly in his chest. Junmyeon really doesn’t know if he prefers this Sehun or last-week Sehun if his heart keeps acting out like this at the sight of Sehun’s antics.

*

The next morning finds Junmyeon being awakened to the soft sound of knocking on his bedroom door, and Junmyeon is honestly surprised at himself for being able to hear the sound through his sleep because he’d ended up sleeping at 2 a.m after getting too engrossed with his work.

“Just come in,” he groans into his pillow when the door doesn’t open after its eighth consecutive knock, wondering why Jongin even bothers with knocking when he clearly has no real understanding of personal space when it comes to Junmyeon. He hears the sound of his door clicking open as he reaches blindly for his phone, grumbling under his breath about how tired his.

With his face still buried into his pillow, Junmyeon deadpans, “What do you want.”

“Um, did I wake you?” oddly, Jongin’s voice doesn’t sound like Jongin’s at all, too sweet and too—

“Sehun?” Junmyeon sits right up on his bed, sleep immediately leaving his body, blanket slipping off his shoulders as he does. It’s Sehun indeed, standing awkwardly in front of Junmyeon’s bedroom door, dressed in a white shirt and a pair of Pororo shorts. Is that—Jongin’s? Why does it look so _good_ on him, though?

Sehun, in return, gives Junmyeon a slow once over, licking his lips as he does before he answers Junmyeon’s question. Junmyeon thinks he might still be inside a dream until Sehun answers, “Yeah. It’s me.”

Junmyeon doesn’t appreciate the sarcasm in his voice, but he is also suddenly hyper-aware of the half-state of undress he is in. Casually trying to cover his naked upper body with his blanket, he rolls his eyes at Sehun’s answer. Sehun just smiles cheekily in return.

Why did it have to be so hot last night and why did he have to forgo using the air conditioner? Right. It’s because he’d felt insulted by a passive-aggressive Youtube ad on saving energy.

“Is there anything you need?” his voice comes out throaty. The image of Sehun licking his lips is burned into the back of his mind now, and he tries to look at everywhere but Sehun’s face to get rid of it.

“The kids and I are going to the park today, and I was thinking maybe you could join me and hang out with them since Jongin tagged along with Mrs. Kim today? Jungah noona is running some errands,” Sehun says, eyes flickering from Junmyeon’s chest to his face. Junmyeon wonders if he’s just imagining it. “I’ll buy you ice cream, too, to repent for my sins of getting day drunk yesterday.”

Junmyeon laughs at the last part of his sentence. Then, he quips, unthinking, “The only thing you’re going to have to repent for is for making Jongin’s Pororo shorts look _that_ sinful.” Fuck. Fuck his sleep-addled brain.

For a fraction of a moment, Sehun looks stunned, but the look is wiped away with a smirk that makes every inch of Junmyeon’s skin blush. He can feel it physically spread through him. He really hopes it’s not visible.

“Okay,” Sehun says, voice light and teasing, “I’ll get another cup to repent for _that_ sin, too.”

Junmyeon really wanted to apologize for hitting on Sehun so shamelessly just a few moments ago, but judging by the look on Sehun’s face, it doesn’t look like he’d taken any offense.

“Uh, so, give me ten minutes to get ready?” Junmyeon says, feeling awkward now that he no longer possesses the suave confidence his slow, sleepy brain had just provided him.

Sehun blows a raspberry. “You already look good enough like this, but okay. I have to change, too.”

Junmyeon’s heart flutters, and Sehun laughs, covering his face with his hands. Junmyeon knows it must be because of the look on his face. He’s still trying to adjust to Sehun’s blatant flirting after a whole week of ignoring.

“We wouldn’t want you staring at my ass all day because of these Pororo shorts now, would we?” Sehun is still laughing as he walks out of Junmyeon’s bedroom, shoulder shaking with mirth.

Had it been Jongin, Junmyeon would have flipped him the bird.

*

The first thing that comes to Junmyeon’s mind when they arrive at the park is how the earth needs a new plague because there’s definitely _too_ many people at the park right now. The pretty, lush green grass and the bright, blue sky gets overlooked thanks to the number of heads Junmyeon sees lounging around the park. Granted, it’s mostly innocent looking families with their dogs or their children, but there’s still too much, and Junmyeon seriously considers on hijacking the car and driving it straight back home again.

Sadly, though, Sehun unbuckles his seatbelt and tells the kids to do the same, and the golden hour of hijacking the car gets thrown out of the window just like that. The kids clamber out of the car like possessed little demons the moment they’re free of their seatbelts, Rahee especially excited at the prospect of making new friends and going down the red slide Junmyeon doesn’t even know exists.

While Junmyeon tries to calm the kids down, chasing Rahee who’s already trying to make her way out of the parking lot and yelling at Raeon to stay put, Sehun disappears into the back of the car. He says he has a few things to retrieve, and that Junmyeon hopes that at least one of them is a magic wand that can cast a pacifying spell on the kids.

When Sehun resurfaces, he’s holding a brown basket that suspiciously looks very picnic-like on one hand, his free hand already reaching to hold for Raeon’s. It’s almost annoying to see Sehun’s effects on the kids—how easily he coaxes Raeon into holding his hand. And when it takes Junmyeon a full minute to stop Rahee from running around, it takes Sehun less than five seconds to make Rahee hold onto Raeon’s free hand.

Junmyeon isn’t jealous, though—not anymore. He thinks he’s a little spellbound by Sehun’s abilities with children.

Sehun has to turn around and quirk an eyebrow at Junmyeon for Junmyeon to realize that he’s been staring, and that he’s supposed to be closing the hand-holding loop on the other end by taking Rahee’s hand in his.

The whole scene feels painfully domestic to Junmyeon, despite the outdoorsy setting and the fact that they’re not even talking to each other. So Junmyeon tries to focus on how humid the air is today, how the heat makes his shirt stick to his back, to distract himself from the fuzzy feeling that blooms inside his chest at the sight of Sehun and the kids. It works only a little.

“Hyung,” Sehun says, cutting into Junmyeon’s thoughts, “you should look for an empty spot for us while I go and buy us some ice cream before more people start coming in.” He jerks his head at the direction of the parking lot, and to his horror, Junmyeon does see more and more car trickle into the parking lot.

“Okay,” Junmyeon agrees, even when he hates the idea of being separated in a crowded place like this, already looking around to search for an empty spot that can hold space for the four of them.

“Here,” Sehun says as he thrusts Junmyeon the brown basket into his free hand, which Junmyeon eyes gingerly before looking up to Sehun and asking, “Is this… a picnic bag?”

Sehun laughs. And even if it seems like Sehun’s laughing _at_ him most of the time he does, the way his whole face lights up when he laughs successfully makes Junmyeon’s heart skips a beat.

“Correct,” Sehun trills, crouching down to get on the kids’ eye-level without any warning, already explaining to the kids that they’re going to have to separate because he’s going to buy them some ice cream as Junmyeon thinks of what to feel about the sudden picnic he’s been included into. He feels a little bamboozled, but it’s not like he’d prepare any differently if Sehun told him that they’re going to a picnic, so he just replies with an understanding hum.

“Give me your phone, hyung,” Sehun says. Junmyeon pauses for a moment before complying, handing Sehun his phone wordlessly. Sehun unlocks the phone smoothly, not without murmuring how Junmyeon should at least have a pattern password at this day and age, and hands the phone back to Junmyeon with a bright smile on his face.

Sehun has saved his number under “Sehunnie” with a heart emoji right next to it, and before Junmyeon could process why he needs Sehun’s number when they both literally live under the same roof, Sehun says, “You’re going to need my number to find me later. Right?”

“Oh, right,” Junmyeon replies, feeling dumb, like he always does around Sehun. It’s disconcerting how slow his brain works around Sehun, especially when he’s supposed to be used to being around his students that are around Sehun’s age.

“And for you to call me if you ever need a wine drinking buddy,” Sehun adds, wriggling his eyebrows, and then turning around to go the opposite direction without leaving Junmyeon time to react to his words.

It seems like all Sehun ever does is catch Junmyeon by surprise, and Junmyeon realizes that he doesn’t mind it at all.

Junmyeon lets himself get tugged away by Raeon’s tiny hands, already chattering away about finding a spot nearest to the playground where he can get to the swings the fastest.

*

It turns out that distracting himself with the annoying summer heat doesn’t work when it comes to distracting himself from his thoughts of Sehun.

The heat isn’t so unbearable with Sehun. It also helps that Sehun had bought him a cup of strawberry ice cream—his personal favorite—and the cold from the ice cream helps heaps in ebbing the heat away.

Maybe it has more to do with how Sehun thrives under the heat, youth rolling off of him in bright waves in the way he laughs and in the way he plays happily with the children. Sehun seems to possess an unlimited amount of energy when it comes to having fun under the bright sun, always up and ready on his feet when Raeon challenges him to yet another game of tag, and never getting annoyed, not even once, when Rahee asks him the same questions she had asked eight times before.

They’re sitting on a checkered picnic blanket that Sehun had found in Junmyeon’s garage, watching the children playing with the new friends they’ve made in comfortable, shared silence, stomachs full from the ice cream and a few sandwiches that Sehun had packed for them. Rahee and Raeon are playing hide and seek with a bunch of new friends they’ve just made in the playground.

“I love summer,” Sehun says, breaking the silence, leaning onto his elbows as he does, “the heat, the brightness, the blue skies—even the birds chirping in the early morning that ruins my sleep.” He turns around to look at Junmyeon, “Jongin tells me you don’t.”

Junmyeon waits for the question, for the judgmental look he’s going to cast at him when he answers the question, but it never comes. Instead, he mutters, “So I… kind of want to apologize for dragging you into the park. I don’t exactly know what is it about summer that you dislike, but I’m guessing going outdoors must suck for you since you’re usually holed in your bedroom when you’re not out in the library. But you didn’t say no when I asked, and—”

“It’s fine,” Junmyeon interrupts, turning to face Sehun, too, smiling softly at him. “You must think I’m weird for having such a specific dislike.”

Sehun frowns, shaking his head. “What makes you think that? I never thought of it that way at all. Everyone has one season they like the least. My mom despises winter,” he pushes himself to sit up and face Junmyeon directly, “she blows most of her money at the end of every year to fly to Australia just to avoid the cold.”

“Your mom’s determination actually just gave me an idea,” Junmyeon replies, laughing. Something in the way Sehun telling him that he’s not weird stirs a pleasant feeling in Junmyeon’s stomach.

“ _Hyung_ ,” Sehun chides, landing a weak slap on Junmyeon’s arm that makes his heart flutter.

Junmyeon clicks his tongue without any real bite to it. “Don’t you want to know why, though? Everyone always seems to be so curious every time they learn that I don’t like summer. Especially when they know that I’m from Santa Barbara, home of where the prettiest beaches are.”

“Not really,” Sehun counters thoughtfully, and pauses to adjust his sitting position to get a better view of the kids. Their shoulders brush when Sehun adds, “There are tons of reasons to hate summer, just like one would hate spring, or winter, or fall—or anything, really.”

Junmyeon’s gaze shifts from where the kids are to Sehun that’s now sitting a lot closer to him. Then, he finds himself saying, “It wasn’t always like this.”

“How so?” Sehun prompts.

“I used to love summer. For the same reasons as you do,” Junmyeon admits, not even sure why he’s telling Sehun things he never even inquired about, but it feels nice with Sehun, it feels okay. “The sun, the sky, the sea—everything, really.”

Sehun hums in acknowledgment, unimposing. Raeon appears next to them right after, hands clamped together as if he’s holding something inside his hands, eyes wide and excited. “Look, uncle,” he exclaims, jumping in his feet as he does, “I caught an animal! Noona says it’s a grasshopper!” He allows a little space between both of his hands to reveal the insect, eagerly showing it to Sehun and Junmyeon, his smile so bright it makes Junmyeon smile, too.

“That’s great, Raeonnie,” Junmyeon commends, patting the toddler’s head affectionately. He can see Sehun’s gaze on him from his peripheral vision, and Sehun is staring at him with a look Junmyeon can’t quite decipher. “But you need to set them free later, alright?”

Raeon pouts at Junmyeon’s words, shoulder sagging unhappily. “But why?”

“Because you have tiny hands, and you can only hold one at a time,” Sehun jumps in, crouching down to get on Raeon’s eye level, “when you’re bigger, later, with bigger hands like uncle has,” Sehun puts one hand in front of Raeon’s face and mushes his whole face with it gently, “you can catch as many grasshoppers as you want. Where’s the fun in only bringing one home?”

Raeon giggles, shrieking in delight as Sehun tries to squish his face again after he successfully wrestled himself free from Sehun’s grasp, running away laughing with a challenging look on his face. Sehun humors the chase for a while, chasing after Raeon with his palms opened and hands outstretched, laughter bubbling in his throat. Junmyeon’s heart feels light.

When they finally stop, Sehun returns to Junmyeon’s side a little breathlessly, smiling as he lies down on the picnic blanket. For a while, they spend the time wordlessly, the sound of children laughing and birds chirping filling in the silence between them, until Sehun opens his eyes and turns to look at Junmyeon.

“But it’s not so bad today, right?” Sehun asks. Junmyeon pretends to consider for a moment, tucking his chin under his hand, frowning thoughtfully.

Sehun rolls his eyes, but looks up at Junmyeon hopefully anyway. Honestly, though, Junmyeon really doesn’t have to think about his answer.

“Yeah,” he answers after a beat, looking down at Sehun with a soft smile. _Because you’re here,_ sits at the tip of Junmyeon tongue, but he can’t bring himself to say it just yet. It feels too raw, too soon—for some reason.

Sehun lets out the smallest sigh, as if sighing in relief, before closing his eyes again, but this time with a smile.

“I’m glad you think that, hyung.”

*

The first text Junmyeon gets from Sehun is when he’s in the library a few days later, and it’s a selfie of him and Jongin doing some water sports activity in a beach.

He’s standing against the sun, the beach in full view behind him, his wet hair sticking to his forehead, sporting his signature blank face with a tiny Jongin grinning behind him. He looks as handsome as he always does, and Junmyeon is a little mesmerized.

The caption says: _wish u were here, ㅋㅋㅋㅋ._

It makes Junmyeon think. He’s looking around at the piles of opened books surrounding him and to the empty chair right next to him when he thinks, that he wishes Sehun is here, too. He can easily imagine Sehun sitting next to him, wearing a bored look on his face with his chin propped on his palm, telling Junmyeon how bored he is before launching into a story about Jongin and libraries or something along the lines of that.

So, he replies, _It would suck less if you were in the library here with me, too._

Sehun sends him eight heart emojis and two kissy face emojis in return.

Is it weird that Junmyeon is blushing?

Under it, Sehun sends a video of his feet on the sand, the ocean waves lapping against it from time to time.

Then he thinks of being in the beach with Sehun, right next to him under the scorching hot sun and with the itchy sand in between his toes, and thinks that maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

*

Junmyeon spends the first half of July pouring his heart and soul into his paper, unable to break away from his work once he’s gotten the groove of it, spending most of his days in his bedroom or in the library.

Every now and then, Jongin invites (read: coerces) Junmyeon into his random adventures with Sehun, now that he’s established that Junmyeon and Sehun are finally friends. Mostly, it’s just very late lunches when Jongin and Sehun wakes up late after a night out partying at some college party Jongin’s old high school juniors had invited him to. (It’s almost painful how devastatingly good Sehun looks when he’s all dressed up, with his hair gelled up and clothes not his usual t-shirt and beach shorts get up.)

But sometimes it’s exciting activities, too, like hiking in Seven Falls, or going to the summer carnival that had opened on the first day of July where Sehun had won Junmyeon a bear plushie that ridiculously reminds him of Jongin, or that one time where Jongin thought it would be fun to go berry picking at Restoration Oaks because that was what google said they should do when spending summer in Santa Barbara.

Turns out, berry picking isn’t as exciting as shutter stock pictures had made them out to be, because Jongin had picked a day where it was hotter than hell to go berry picking, and they’d spent fifteen minutes in angry silence because no one wanted to go home when they’ve already made the drive all the way to the berry field. It was too bright to even look up at the sky that day, and they ended up abandoning their berry buckets to drive to the nearest building with air conditioning or at least cold water to soothe their burning bodies. They’d ended up in a fancy restaurant that Junmyeon had shouldered the bill for because Sehun and Jongin looked like they were going to pass out when the bill arrived.

But it had been a funny story to look back to and tell the rest of the family when they’d gotten home for dinner, and Sehun’s really good at impersonating both Jongin and Junmyeon as he reenacted the story excitedly, eyes permanently crinkled into tiny crescent moons throughout the dinner. So the amount of laughter they’d laughed during the night made up for the horrible day they had, even when Junmyeon’s mother had nagged on them about the dangers of not wearing sunscreen when berry picking.

Hanging out with Sehun is the most pleasant way Junmyeon can think of to pass time. Sehun gets comfortable around Junmyeon quickly, touching him and hugging him and swearing in front of him like they’ve been best friends for years, and Junmyeon thinks he likes it. He also _laughs_ at Junmyeon’s lame dad jokes. Even when it’s mock-laughter, that’s still more than Junmyeon could ever ask for in a friendship.

Sehun is a breath of fresh, gorgeous air in exchange for… no one, really, because Junmyeon hasn’t had any new friends for quite a while now.

At times when Jungah has errands to run and the rest of the family is unavailable to babysit her kids, Sehun is quick to volunteer to stay back home to help Junmyeon with the babysitting, where they’d try to finish off the movie list Sehun had made for Junmyeon back in the beginning of summer as Raeon and Rahee plays idly around them. Junmyeon finds that he actually enjoys 1980s romcoms, the way it makes butterflies flutter inside his stomach at the cheesy romantic confessions, even when he can tell how the story will end.

But he thinks that it might be because he’s watching it with a certain blond who never stops talking so enthusiastically throughout the movies even when he claims he’s watched it more than a dozen times, too.

With the amount of time Junmyeon and Sehun spend together, it doesn’t take long until Junmyeon adopts some of Sehun’s personality traits. It feels odd to catch himself talk with slangs or to hear himself respond to questions with the slightest hint of sarcasm like the teenager he isn’t supposed to be, but it’s hard to shake the habit off when Sehun is now a constant in his life.

Junmyeon learns that he can feel young again without having to do extreme sports like jump off the top of Burj Khalifa to chase that kind of youthful thrill Luhan is always looking for; Sehun’s existence is enough for him, his limitless exuberant energy already somewhat rubbing off on him.

Jongin gets increasingly excited at their rapidly growing friendship. He shows it by endlessly teasing Junmyeon about Sehun at the dinner table in front of their whole family like Sehun isn’t even there. If Sehun is bugged by the teasing, he never really shows it, only smiling sweetly and politely responding to Junmyeon’s parents’ questions and Jungah’s comments.

When they’re apart, Sehun texts Junmyeon like he’s afraid that Junmyeon is going to forget him if he doesn’t, constantly sending pictures of the most random things he can find, sometimes selfies of him in varying degrees of bored facial expressions, and like this, Junmyeon can see the similarities between Jongin and Sehun as the two peas in a pod they claim they are.

Personally, Junmyeon isn’t a big fan of texting, but for Sehun, he makes do. He prefers meeting in person or calling or even sending e-mails because it doesn’t stretch as long as texting throughout the whole day does, but Sehun is consistent and persistent with his stream of messages, and Junmyeon has no choice but to google Sehun’s pop-culture references and acronyms that makes no sense in Junmyeon’s head at all.

Junmyeon doesn’t know why Sehun is so keen on staying connected with him, when he’s sure that he has the personality of zucchini. Sehun, to Junmyeon, despite his bluntness and his expressiveness, is about as decipherable as hieroglyphs to Raeon. The only thing that Junmyeon understands about Sehun _is_ that he’s a blunt and expressive person. Who also seems to have taken a liking to Junmyeon by the way he willingly spends time with Junmyeon. Junmyeon doesn’t mind the attention, really—if anything, he enjoys it—but he doesn’t know what to do about _his_ growing feelings for Sehun.

It’s been so long since Junmyeon has felt something like attraction that it’s hard for him to apprehend what the pull he has for Sehun entails. Like right now, when he finds himself neglecting his work to reply to Sehun’s text, despite the fact that they’re both at home, only separated by a single wall that divides Jongin’s bedroom and Junmyeon’s bedroom.

Junmyeon is in the middle of reading an e-book when his phone buzzes with Sehun’s text, and he opens it to find pictures of Sehun on his trip to the pier with Jongin today. Sehun is asking for his opinion of which pictures fits best with his Instagram aesthetic, and Junmyeon has to download Instagram for the sake of checking Sehun’s account. He really doesn’t mind, though.

He’s been given the task to pick the best picture out of the three pictures that Sehun had sent him. It’s clear that Jongin was the one who took the pictures because all of them are out of focus to a certain degree, but Sehun’s beauty helps in taking away the focus from all the blurriness.

The first picture has Sehun leaning against the pier with the sun setting behind him, face barely visible from the sky’s overexposure, with a peace sign covering half of his face. The second picture has Sehun covering his right cheek with one hand, and the last has him just standing there with his hands shoved into his jean pockets, staring into the camera with his signature blank face. Junmyeon picks the last one as his personal favorite, obviously because Sehun’s face isn’t covered by anything, and he quickly sends the picture back, mindlessly adding, _I like this one the best, because I can see all of you._

The cheesiness in his text only dawns upon him when Sehun’s text bubble turns into one that indicates he’s typing, and by then it’s too late because Sehun’s already read the message and there’s nothing he can do but wait for Sehun to leave him on read or worse—block him in disgust. With heart speeding up in his chest, Junmyeon settles his phone onto the table screen down in haste, not ready to see Sehun’s reply, forcing himself to look at the open Word document on his laptop screen instead of his phone.

He ignores the buzzing that comes from his phone a few seconds after he starts typing on his laptop, glaring at the words displayed on his laptop screen in hopes of taking his mind away from his nervousness. It buzzes a couple of more times after that, and Junmyeon has to throw his phone onto his bed to stop himself from thinking about his stupid text.

Junmyeon is halfway into a sentence he’s successfully came up with after two minutes of rereading the same paragraph from an e-book on The Influence of Goryo Dynasty on Modern Day Politics when he hears a soft rap on his bedroom door, one that nearly knocks him off his chair in surprise, the only thing saving him from crashing into the cold hard floor his deathly grip on his wooden study.

“Come in,” Junmyeon calls out, trying his best not to sound breathless as he pulls himself back into a sitting position. He’s looking down at his pathetic shaking hands, thinking that he really should start working out again when the door opens softly, letting light from the hallway stream into his bedroom. It makes him look up from his hand to find Sehun standing by the door awkwardly, hair tousled like he’s just gotten out of the bed before he walked himself here.

“You weren’t replying to my texts,” Sehun says softly, taking a step inside Junmyeon’s bedroom gingerly. He stops after that, keeping the rest of his body out of Junmyeon’s bedroom, and for a brief moment, Junmyeon thinks that he must’ve done something to upset Sehun to make him seem so hesitant.

“I can see you overthinking it, hyung,” Sehun’s words pull Junmyeon out of his short reverie, and it feels a lot like déjà vu. He looks up to see Sehun’s soft smile from his bedroom door and lets out a breath of relief when Sehun adds, “I just wanted to know what was more important than me.” The smile turns cheeky at the end of his sentence.

“I’m sorry,” Junmyeon gets up from his chair to approach Sehun that’s still standing by his bedroom door, “I got absorbed into my work as usual. My phone is on the bed, so I didn’t hear it vibrate,” he jerks his head at his bed, mentally patting his own back for freaking himself out and throwing his phone onto his bed in a whim.

Sehun squints his eyes at Junmyeon’s bed, and nods slowly after. “Sure.”

“Yeah,” Junmyeon replies dumbly, gaze flickering from Sehun and onto his phone on his bed, and then back to Sehun’s still squinting face. It feels like Sehun has more to say, so Junmyeon gathers his courage and asks, “is there something else you wanted to say?”

Sehun gawks at Junmyeon—a first since after all the days they’ve spent together—shoulders tense and eyes open wide. It only lasts for less than a second before he regains his composure like he always does.

“Actually, yes,” Junmyeon detects a hint of something new in Sehun’s tone—one that he’s never heard before. “I wanted to ask if you’d like to watch a movie with me?” Junmyeon realizes now that it’s uncertainty, by the way Sehun’s eyes refuses to meet his, staring at his face and not his eyes.

“Um, you mean like in the theatre?” Junmyeon has the decency to steal a look at his bedroom’s wall clock to make his question look real and not just an excuse to avoid going out with Sehun because it sounds awfully a lot like an excuse. It’s a quarter to nine, the skies just darkening outside of Junmyeon’s bedroom window.

“I was thinking of going to a drive-in theatre since I’ve never been in one before, but the movies sound great, too,” Sehun replies, shifting his weight from one foot to another.

It’s been ages since Junmyeon had gone to a drive-in theatre.

“Okay,” Junmyeon doesn’t really need time to think when it comes to Sehun, because he knows Sehun can make watching paint dry feel bearable. “I don’t think I need to change because we don’t even have to step outside out of the car in a drive-in theatre, right? So you and Jongin can get ready if you want while I save my files.”

Sehun blinks vapidly at Junmyeon. “Jongin’s not coming? He’s exhausted from slaving at the fro-yo shop today, he passed out.”

“Oh,” Junmyeon tries to sound nonchalant, even when his heart is beating loud enough to make him fear that Sehun can hear the steady stream of his heart’s _thump, thump, thump._ He wills away the thoughts of this being a date, because Sehun obviously wouldn’t want to go on a date with an old hag like him, but it proves to be near impossible to calm his ecstatic heart.

“Um,” Sehun bites his lip, eyeing the floor as he does, “it’s okay if you don’t want to if Jongin isn’t—”

“Not at all! It’s fine, really, in fact I’m glad that Jongin won’t be around,” Junmyeon knows that his sentence came out so, so wrong, but it makes Sehun giggle, and it lifts the weight of worry that has been sitting on his shoulders ever since Sehun knocked on his bedroom door.

“Let me change into a shirt that doesn’t have holes in it, then,” this time, Sehun finally meets his eyes, and they’re crinkled into their signature endearing crescent moons that always makes Junmyeon’s stomach does tiny little flips at the sight of it.

“And I’ll save my files and get the keys,” Junmyeon says.

“I’ll see you downstairs in five?” Sehun sounds hopeful, bottom lip caught by his canines like it always does when he’s worried.

Junmyeon rolls his eyes. “It’ll never take you just five minutes to get ready.”

Fuck, why does he sound exactly like Sehun?

“It’s not my fault that you can’t rush perfection,” Sehun snorts, eyes twinkling with mischief when he shuts Junmyeon’s bedroom door.

Well, Sehun’s not wrong. At certain times, when the lighting hits all the angles on his face just right, Sehun really looks like the human embodiment of the word perfection.

*

Tonight, Sehun offers to be their driver, choosing Jungah’s trusty ’16 Jetta convertible for the sake of driving with the top down for their ride, because he claims he’s never had the luxury of driving around like teenagers in indie movies do. When Junmyeon he points out to him that they are not teenagers anymore, Sehun pointedly ignores him.

Also, he insists on driving with the top down despite the chilly air, saying that this is an experience he can’t skip out on after being an avid user of the public transportation system for the past four years since he’s moved for college.

Junmyeon finds it startling, over and over again, just how young Sehun is when he starts to talk about new experiences in his life like going to college when Junmyeon had done that almost a decade ago, but he doesn’t let it overwhelm him, and instead try to accept the reality that Sehun is young and it’s _okay_ for him to hang out with Sehun.

The night is young, Junmyeon thinks, as he looks at Sehun’s profile, looking as clear as day despite the dark sky.

Sehun looks unfairly good just simply driving the car with his blond hair flying in the wind, one hand on the steering wheel while his other hand waves happily in the air to the beat of the song from their now combined Spotify playlist. It’s also unfair how he gets to drive the nicer car the one time they finally get the chance to be rid of driving Junmyeon’s Prius for the day.

In between intervals of one song switching to another, Junmyeon can hear the sound of the crashing waves and the sound of the wind blowing lightly onto their faces. They’re driving by the coast, and the humid ocean air feels moist and heavy against his faded Yu-Gi-Oh shirt, making him conscious of how lanky and underdressed he is compared to Sehun despite the fact that Sehun is just dressed in a white t-shirt and some pajama shorts.

“I fucking love this song,” Sehun says over the music, looking at Junmyeon with smiling eyes. The pale streetlight that kisses the strands of his blond hair makes it look almost silver, and Junmyeon’s breath catches in his throat.

Junmyeon concentrates on listening to the song he’d tuned out of. Surprisingly, it’s one of his songs instead of Sehun’s, and his heart flutters at the thought of Sehun listening to _his_ songs. He’d thought that Sehun had only asked him to put his songs into their now shared playlist out of politeness, but turns out, for the nth time, he’s wrong about Sehun.

“Really?” Junmyeon smiles, somewhat flattered.

“Yeah, really. Why are you so surprised?”

“I just,” Junmyeon finds himself chuckling, elated that Sehun really does like his song when he’s so used to people telling him to listen to better songs. “Can’t believe you really like it.”

Sehun catches Junmyeon’s gaze from the rearview mirror, and somehow it makes him laugh, head tilting back in delight. The angle makes his face glow prettily under the harsh, incandescent streetlights.

“By the way,” Sehun says, giggle already bubbling in his throat again, “You do know that you sometimes look like Shiba Inu, right?”

Junmyeon flushes, a little confused. “What?”

“You know, the meme? The doge meme I send you like, eighty times a day?” Junmyeon stares at Sehun blankly. He has no idea what Sehun is talking about. He’s about to ask Sehun to elaborate when Sehun announces, “Oh wait, hold on, we’re here.”

The drive-in theatre is to Junmyeon’s right, and the first thing Junmyeon sees is the big, red letters on the board sign that tells them of what double feature movie they’re screening tonight. Sehun’s face lights up as he switches on the turn signal, excitement palpable in the way he straightens his back, tongue darting over to wet his lips repeatedly.

His eyes are bright and filled with anticipation when he looks at Junmyeon, and Junmyeon can’t help but feel excited, too. After all, it’s been ages since he’s last been to a drive-in theatre too. He remembers going to the theatre with his friends a few times in college, but it had been mostly unremarkable. The first time he went, Luhan had fallen asleep halfway through the movies, and Kyungsoo Do, Luhan’s roommate that Junmyeon hadn’t heard of in years now, had sat next to Junmyeon in the passenger seat in complete silence throughout the rest of the movie.

“Where do you want to park?” Sehun asks when they enter the lot, pulling Junmyeon out of his walk down the memory lane, quickly pulling his wallet out to pay for their tickets when they get to the ticketing booth, smile splitting into a grin when the employee hands him their tickets, waving the ticket in front of his face excitedly like Raeon does with his Halloween candies.

“I don’t mind anywhere, really,” Junmyeon answers, and Sehun nods speedily, shoulders and brows wriggling to the beat of a pop song that had started to play.

Junmyeon chortles at Sehun, slowly feeling Sehun’s excitement rubbing off on him, his head itching to nod along to the beat of the song.

They pick a parking spot the second row from the back. It’s a little far from the screen, and the speakers at the part of their lot don’t really work, so the first thing Sehun does is tell Junmyeon to tune in to the theatre’s channel on their car radio. Unbuckling his seat belt the moment he sets the car in neutral, Sehun turns around to reach for the things he’s packed in the back seat immediately right after.

The first item Sehun hands him is a blanket—Pororo printed, of course, because everything Jongin has left in their childhood home has at least one Pororo logo on each of it—and Junmyeon watches with fascination as Sehun unloads more and more things Junmyeon didn’t know he had the time to pack for.

Sehun finally settles into his seat after a good five minutes and tells Junmyeon to recline his seat as he reclines his own, smile returning to his face when the speakers announce that the film is starting in a few minutes.

He hands Junmyeon the Tupperware he’d been holding onto as Junmyeon hands him his share of the blanket. “These are leftover brownies from Jungah noona’s batch this morning, by the way—I didn’t have the time to make sandwiches or any snack for us, so I just shoved whatever was in the fridge for us to enjoy while watching.”

“You’re really excited about this, aren’t you?” Junmyeon asks, unable to tear his gaze away from Sehun’s ecstatic face as he takes the Tupperware in his hands.

“Of course, I’ve always wanted to go to a drive-in theatre for the longest time,” he answers breezily, pulling the blanket closer to his body, making himself comfortable in his seat. “It’s a hundred times better than I’d imagined now that you’re here with me, too.”

The warmth that blooms in Junmyeon’s chest at Sehun’s words makes him forget about the chilly night air.

*

Sehun chatters away like he always does when they watch movies at home.

Even in scenes where he doesn’t have anything to say, he makes noises from the back of his throat to showcase his emotions, and Junmyeon enjoys his commentaries, appreciating the change of scenery after getting so used to watching movies in the confines of his living room.

They finish the tub of brownies in the first fifteen minutes of the movie, and Sehun whines at Junmyeon for eating more than half of their portion, so Junmyeon gets sent out for snack-buying duties on the forty-minute mark, only registering how cold it actually is when he’s free from the protection of Jongin’s Pororo blanket and the warmth of Sehun’s body. He gets them a large tub of popcorn with a glass of milkshake for Sehun and a glass of coke for himself, and the extra intake of food seems to give Sehun a new wave of energy that lasts him throughout the first movie and onto the second.

By the time the second movie hits the thirty-minute mark, though, Junmyeon feels his exhaustion closing in on him, eyelids growing heavier and heavier with each passing second. His seat is fully reclined and he’s lying on his side, head cushioned by Rahee’s trusty Olaf plushie, facing the car door.

He vaguely registers Sehun’s voice calling for his name but chucks it off as the sound from the movie, until Sehun jabs a finger to his side that jerks him awake. It proves successful only momentarily, though, because after the initial shock that makes Junmyeon jump in his seat and turns around to look at Sehun dirtily, the heaviness in his eyelids returns.

“Sleepy already?” Sehun smirks down at him, but Junmyeon detects the hint of concern in his tone. It’s scary how easily he can read Sehun now.

“Yeah, kind of,” Junmyeon rubs his eyes to keep himself awake, stretching his arms as he straightens his back to face the screen again, “sorry—I’m a little tired because I stayed up until four yesterday. If I fall asleep again just keep waking me up.”

“We can go home now if you’re already tired,” Sehun frowns, sitting up from his chair, making the Pororo blanket fall off his shoulders.

Junmyeon should’ve known better than to look up at Sehun when he’s sleepy like this, recalling the time he’d shamelessly told how sinful Sehun looked in Pororo shorts under the influence of sleep, but he _is_ tired, and he has no concept of better judgment, so he looks up. He looks up to see Sehun’s beautiful face peering down at him with concern, and his heart instantly lodges to his throat.

“Why do you like me, Sehun?” the question isn’t supposed to come out like that at all. Exhaustion really is Junmyeon’s enemy. But in the same heartbeat, Junmyeon _does_ want to know. At least to a degree.

Sehun looks surprised. It’s a first, because between the two of them, Junmyeon has always exclusively been the one that’s at the receiving end of Sehun’s surprising antics.

“I…” he trails, and it’s a first, too, because Sehun had never been at a loss for words around Junmyeon.

“Sorry,” Junmyeon apologizes, quickly paraphrasing right after, “I meant to ask on why you’re so willing to be friends with me. I mean, we really don’t have to go home just because I’m tired. You… keep texting me even when I don’t understand most of your references. You stay at home to help me babysit Raeon and Rahee. You—”

“I get what you mean,” Sehun assures him, smirk returning. And then, it softens into a smile when he says, “I like you because you’re you.”

Junmyeon’s heart drops to his chest from his throat, skipping a few beats as it does. He doesn’t understand.

“But,” Junmyeon struggles to come up with the right words to say, mind going a mile a minute at the repercussion of Sehun’s words.

“But?” Sehun prods, searching for his eyes.

“But I’m not likable.” The weight of his words only settles after he’s said it out loud.

“What?” Sehun asks sharply. The smile on his face gets replaced by a scowl in a flash, and Junmyeon’s heart speeds up nervously. He’s never seen Sehun lose his cool like this. “Who said that?”

“No one,” Junmyeon counters quickly, looking away. He tries to focus at everything else aside from the intensity of Sehun’s gaze, at the sound of crickets chirping and the frogs croaking in the distance, but it doesn’t work. “Look, I misspoke. Let’s just finish the movie and—”

“It’s that Kris dude, isn’t it?” the laughter that comes out of Sehun is cynical, almost angry, and to say that Junmyeon is shocked would be an understatement. A series of feelings wash over Junmyeon, surprise, confusion, and a hint of fear—because what if Sehun thinks he’s a freak for getting worked about some guy he hasn’t even met in eight years?

“I didn’t mean to sound like a know-it-all,” Sehun continues, eyes downcast, “but Jongin told me about that dick who made summer suck for you. I just—I know I shouldn’t have brought him up, but it just bothers me so much that you’d think of yourself as someone unlikable. You’re not unlikable, hyung. Not even marginally.” He’s heaving by the end of his sentence, brows knitted so close together it almost merges into one thin, angry line.

Junmyeon knows he’s supposed to be mad, or at least bothered, because if there’s anything he hates, it’s when someone thinks they know him more than they do, especially when it comes to Kris and what role he had played in Junmyeon’s life. But looking at Sehun with his furrowed brows and his tense shoulders, all Junmyeon can think of is how much he hates seeing Sehun upset.

Softly, Junmyeon presses a finger on the empty skin in between Sehun’s brows, pushing it upwards to disperse the frown away from Sehun’s face. When Sehun’s brows unknits, his finger slides down to the bridge of his nose, before his hand finally settles on his jaw, thumb resting on top of his cheekbone. Junmyeon does this all thoughtlessly, movement powered partly by his desire to chase away the nasty thoughts away from Sehun’s head, and partly by his desire to just _touch_.

The gesture flummoxes Sehun, but he doesn’t flinch away from the touch, his own hand reaching up to rest against Junmyeon’s hand on his face. He looks up to meet Junmyeon’s eyes, no traces of anger left in his eyes.

“If you say I’m not unlikable, Sehun,” Junmyeon says softly, surprising even himself with how clearheaded he is even with the exhaustion and the series of emotions churning inside of him, “then I’m not unlikable.”

In a split of a second, something changes in the way Sehun looks at Junmyeon, and Junmyeon feels Sehun’s grip on his hand tighten. Junmyeon even swears that he sees Sehun’s eyes drop to his mouth, but it’s all gone before Junmyeon even blinks.

The air around them suddenly feels so charged, and Junmyeon swallows thickly, heart pounding against his ribs painfully.

But then Sehun breaks the spell by giving Junmyeon’s hand a hard squeeze, face splitting into a grin just milliseconds after, even when his eyes betray the nonchalance he’s trying to hide with his grin. “That’s good enough for me,” Sehun says lightly.

Letting go of his grip on Junmyeon’s hand, Sehun lets his body fall back into his reclined seat with a loud thump. The exhale that escapes him after is staggered.

“I’m always right, after all,” Sehun continues, tone playful now, putting both of his hands at the back of his head as he looks up at the night sky instead of Junmyeon. Gone is the intensity in his eyes, and the rigidness in his muscles. “If I say you’re likable, then you are. Now that you’ve established that I’m right, I’ll apologize for being so dramatic before. I really didn’t mean to.”

Half of Junmyeon wants to make Sehun address all the confusion that he’d just put Junmyeon through with his rapid change of emotions, but then Junmyeon realizes that he isn’t entitled to anything, so Junmyeon smiles, too, leaning back into his chair the way Sehun is. Seeing Sehun smile again after his mini freak out is already good enough.

“I’m sorry again for bringing Kris up,” Sehun says after a beat, still looking up at the sky. Junmyeon shifts in his chair to make himself more comfortable, moving Rahee’s Olaf plushie onto a few different spots before finally stopping when he finds the right angle where he can lay his head on it without hurting his neck in the process. “Jongin didn’t say anything specific, by the way. He just said that there’s this guy that… ruined the summer for you, and that was that.”

It’s alarming to Junmyeon how calm he is as he processes everything Sehun had just said. Even his own closest friends have never talked about Kris so openly in front of him because they know how it would upset him, but with Sehun, it almost feels stupid that he’s made such a big deal of everything Kris related when the dust should’ve settled long ago.

Maybe it’s because he’s looking up at the open sky, the pretty stars twinkling brightly above him that seems to serve as a reminder of how small and insignificant his life is in the grand scheme of things. Maybe it’s because he’s with Sehun, the one person that somehow manages to make him feel like everything is going to be okay.

“Do you want to know what happened?” Junmyeon asks, heart thrumming under his chest at his newfound bravery that seems to have come out of nowhere. “I mean, if you’re not still watching the movie.”

Sehun laughs. It has grown to be one of Junmyeon’s favorite sounds to hear. He turns to look at Sehun to find him already looking at him, eyes warm and… fond. “I don’t care about the movie, hyung. The first one was enough.”

“Okay,” Junmyeon says, holding Sehun’s gaze.

Softly, Sehun replies, “Okay.” It’s so cheesy and ridiculous that both of them break into giggles right after, and it makes Junmyeon feel giddy.

“I met Kris on the second year of college,” Junmyeon starts when they’ve both calmed themselves down, the first time in years he’s thinking about the man in detail again. “It had been easy to be friends with him—he was already popular before I met him, and my friend had introduced him as a possible vice president candidate for me when I was going to run for president on a charity work student committee that I’d been active in.”

Junmyeon remembers being star-struck the first time Kris had introduced himself to him, the way his blond hair had looked so natural on him was almost criminal, his height that towered over Junmyeon violently attractive. Junmyeon had never heard someone with a voice as low as Kris’. It was impossible to look away from him.

“Of course you’d run for president in a charity work committee,” Sehun comments, a somewhat proud smile now etched on his face. He’s placed his right hand under his cheek for cushion now, eyes still fixed on Junmyeon. Junmyeon blushes.

“I’d been struggling with… my sexuality before I met him. It wasn’t as much of a problem with mom and dad or Jongin, really, they’ve always been supportive of whoever I wanted to be. It was with everyone else that it sucked trying to come to terms with what I wanted. The whispers, the looks… the shit they’d said about,” Junmyeon visibly winces, “gay people a decade ago weren’t cute. So, it really sucked. Even now, really. Most people say they’re all for the love is love movement and blah, blah, blah, but in reality—they still look away, still…”

Junmyeon has to pause to collect his breath. He didn’t even realize that talking about it had gotten him all worked up until he has to catch his breath. Sehun’s free hand reaches for Junmyeon’s hand all the way from the driver’s seat, warm fingers clasping around Junmyeon’s idle hand gently. The angle is awkward, and it must be uncomfortable for Sehun, but it works in comforting Junmyeon, the tension melting away from his muscles with each passing second.

“I tried, you know? To belong. I always wanted to belong. To like girls and be with them,” Junmyeon chuckles, tone bitter.

“But with Kris, I instantly knew that he was what I wanted. With him, I was finally able to come to terms with the fact that I liked men. He was so nice, so chill with everything, that I just…” Junmyeon used to think that it would hurt. He used to think that he would choke up when he talks about what happened with Kris, because it had been so painful, but surprisingly, it doesn’t. “Fell in love. I fell fast and hard. There’s not much story after that, really. He said that he wanted to give us a try and so we’d gone back here for our last summer in college.”

Sehun waits patiently for him to continue, nodding his head slowly at Junmyeon.

“And then nothing happened. It had been just me all along, and I think he was just… curious. He never rejected me. Instead, he’d told me that summer looked bad on me. And then he added that he might just be more into Jongin than he was into me,” he pauses to take a deep breath, “I know it’s dumb that his stupid words had ruined summer for me, but I was twenty-three and things hurt deeper when you’re younger. To me, at least. After things ended with me, he’d immediately dated a girl—and then married that same girl. Summer sucked after him. Sure, the beaches are still pretty, and the blue skies are still bright and beautiful, but everything reminds me so much of him that I just don’t feel it anymore.”

Junmyeon has to look away when he says his final words. “It sucks to live knowing that I’d once been an experiment of some sort, when I’d fallen in love so hard. Loving was never the same after him.”

The words are so fucking cliché and cheesy, but still feels like Junmyeon has just bared his soul in front of Sehun. But now that he’s said the words out loud, he feels a thousand times lighter. Like a bunch of weight have finally been lifted off his shoulders. It’s startling to think that he just said all the words he just did just because he misspoke earlier about Sehun’s liking towards him.

“I’m so sorry, hyung.” Sehun almost sounds heartbroken. Running his thumb along Junmyeon’s knuckles soothingly, “If you say it hurts you, then it hurts. It’s not dumb.”

“Thank you, Sehunnie,” Junmyeon says.

“You’re welcome,” Sehun replies, eyes never leaving his. None of them looks away. Junmyeon has to force himself to _not_ look away, because the honey like warmth dripping from Sehun’s eyes is a little too much for his heart to handle.

The silence that follows after Sehun’s words is almost deafening. Junmyeon doesn’t even register the dialogue from the movie blaring from their car stereo anymore, because all he can feel and see is Sehun. And right now, right in front of him, Sehun looks a lot like the epiphany Junmyeon needed to have eight years ago.

Then Sehun releases Junmyeon’s hand from his grasp. His hand moves to rest on Junmyeon’s wrist, trailing up the skin along Junmyeon’s arm a second later, leaving the skin on Junmyeon’s arm where he touched burning in its wake. Its final destination seems to be the crook of Junmyeon’s neck, and when his warm hand settles there, Junmyeon’s breath hitches in his throat.

The air around them is recharged. Heat pools at the bottom of Junmyeon’s stomach, and yet he does all but reciprocate Sehun’s touch. He watches with anticipation as Sehun leans in closer to him, breath stopping completely when Sehun’s face is just a hairsbreadth away from his face. Sehun is so, so close now, and Junmyeon can’t think of anything aside from their proximity, and how clear—how pretty Sehun’s face is up close like this, flaws practically nonexistent, and how much he _wants_ to eliminate the distance between them.

Sehun’s eyes drop to his mouth, and unlike the first time, it stays.

“Hyung,” Sehun says softly, eyes making his way slowly back up to meet Junmyeon’s. The caress of Sehun’s warm breath on his lips is almost painful. “Can I kiss you?”

Junmyeon’s heart skips a beat slowly. He only realizes now that all the mixed emotions that churns at the bottom of his stomach every time Sehun is around him translates to _want_. He wants Sehun. And it’s a miracle that Sehun wants him, too.

The question goes unanswered.

Leaning in to close the gap between them once and for all, Junmyeon kisses Sehun gently, even when there’s a hint of desperation that burns inside his body. Sehun tastes sweet and a lot like the butter on the tub of popcorn that they’d finished together, but it’s easily the best thing that Junmyeon has ever tasted in his life.

Adrenaline flows through Junmyeon’s veins like never before when Sehun reciprocates his kiss eagerly, smiling happily when he can feel the car’s gearshift digging into his left kneecap uncomfortably. Their uncomfortable position doesn’t annoy Junmyeon at all, not even one bit. All he feels is his thick, pulsating blood rushing through his body as he reaches up to cup Sehun’s jaw to pull him closer, unable to keep his hands to himself. Sehun’s chest flushed against his leaves Junmyeon both warm and hot all over, sighing into the kiss when Sehun tilts his head for better access.

It’s been so long— _too_ long since he’s kissed anyone, let alone want someone as much as he wants Sehun right now. Each press of Sehun’s lips against his leaves him hungry for more, more, more, until his lungs are filled with nothing but burning desire. When they part for air, all Junmyeon can hear is the loud pounding of his heart and their combined, ragged breathing.

Has kissing always felt _this_ good?

Sehun’s eyes are warm and dark at the same time, and like this, with the soft glow of the moonlight illuminating the side of his face, he looks near ethereal. Junmyeon forgets how to breathe entirely, warmth filling his veins and spreading throughout his entire body, soul, and existence.

“You’re unreal,” Junmyeon could’ve settled with just saying that Sehun is beautiful, but he knows full well that Sehun is more than just that.

Sehun’s whole face lights up at his words, and he leans in to press another kiss on Junmyeon’s lips. “You don’t look so bad yourself, even with your stupid Yu-Gi-Oh shirt on.”

Junmyeon smacks Sehun’s arm without any real heat. The gesture backfires, though, because Sehun’s foot accidentally switches on the wiper thanks to Junmyeon’s push, turning the wiper on and surprising them both with the high-pitched screech of the dry rubber blade rubbing against the car’s very dry windshield, making them pull apart in shock.

Frightened, Sehun quickly sits up to turn the wiper off and Junmyeon follows suit, straightening his seat up as he goes. When their eyes meet again, Sehun is the first to break into a grin. Breathy giggles follow right after, which then evolves into a full blown laughter when Junmyeon joins in.

For a while, all they do is laugh. Sehun’s laughter is so bright and contagious that it’s almost impossible for Junmyeon to stop laughing, too. The pleasant warmth from all over his body concentrates into a single point in his chest.

“It’s only fitting now that I make it my job to reinstate your love for summer,” Sehun finally says when they’re all caught up with their breathing, face still beaming like a million-megawatt lightbulb.

Junmyeon smiles at that, heart so full and soft and warm that all he manages to say is, “Okay.”

He can’t believe he just kissed Sehun freaking Oh.

“Let’s go home now, then,” Sehun announces, straightening his seat back up, effectively shucking off the Pororo blankets off his body as he does. Junmyeon hums in agreement as he reaches to collect the now discarded blankets pooling around Sehun’s thighs.

As the car sputters back to life, Junmyeon finds himself staring at Sehun, thinking about how awfully similar everything feels right now when compared to the summer he had eight years ago. He doesn’t know what anything between Sehun and him right now means, and it’s irritating to see Kris in Sehun’s blond hair, towering height, and his pretty smile.

When Sehun distractedly reaches to intertwine their fingers together from the driver’s seat, though, Junmyeon knows that this time around, it’s going to be different.

“By the way, hyung,” Sehun says quietly, peering down fondly at Junmyeon as he puts the car in reverse. “‘Sehunnie’ sounds really nice.”

Junmyeon smiles up at him. With Sehun, Kris feels like a distant memory, one from light years before, as he should have always been.

*

Junmyeon wakes up to warm hands pinching the skin right under his ribs. He doesn’t know how or when did it manage to find its way under his shirt, but all he knows is how much he’s going to make whoever woke him up regret.

When he opens his eyes, though, Sehun’s mischievous face is what greets him, and all the anger within him dissipates in seconds.

“Good morning,” Sehun singsongs, smiling smugly like his hair isn’t sticking up in five different directions. Junmyeon doesn’t blame his overconfidence, though, it’s hard to care about maintaining your looks when you have a face like Sehun’s.

“Morning,” Junmyeon croaks in return, sitting up slowly while he looks around to confirm that he is still in his bedroom instead of someplace else that Sehun has kidnapped him into. Sehun is sitting on the side of his bed still in the same clothes he wore last night, hands making no move to detach itself from where it’s settled now on Junmyeon’s hips. Junmyeon decides that he likes the warmth of Sehun’s hand pressed against his body.

“Remember when I said I’m going to make you love summer again?” Sehun asks, voice excited, “Well that’s happening right now. Come on, get your ass off the bed.”

He doesn’t allow time for Junmyeon to get his wits together before he’s pulling Junmyeon onto his feet by his wrist, the childlike mirth in his eyes so adorable it’s stupid that Junmyeon’s heart accelerates at the sight of it. Junmyeon finds himself smiling despite the tiredness in his bones, feet quickly catching up with Sehun’s steps, telling Sehun to slow down when he nearly trips over Junmyeon’s pile of laundry sitting on the floor at the side of his bed.

“Where are we going?” Junmyeon asks when he realizes that Sehun isn’t taking him out of his bedroom, and instead towards his balcony. Sehun doesn’t say anything but opens the glass door toward his balcony instead, placing a hand on the small of Junmyeon’s back before pushing him out the door.

It’s dark and chilly outside, and Junmyeon is definitely way too underdressed to be exposed to the open air like this, but when he turns around Sehun has already shut the door behind them, facing Junmyeon with a look that says Junmyeon can’t go anywhere.

“We’re climbing onto the rooftop,” Sehun announces like it’s the most normal thing to do at the wee hours of morning, definitely not taking a no for an answer, “to watch the sunrise. Sunrises are pretty, and I’m never going to be able to wake up at this time of the day for the rest of summer ever again so we’re doing it today.”

Junmyeon doesn’t even think to come up with any kind of protest. Complying, Junmyeon hugs himself to keep himself warm as he watches Sehun scale the walls with no difficulty. When he reaches the rooftop, he looks down at Junmyeon with a triumphant smile that makes Junmyeon’s heart skip a beat, already outstretching his arm.

“I know you’re short and all that, but I’ve done my math and established that I’ll pull you up with my hand to make up for the last few inches,” Sehun says flatly, tone smug. When Junmyeon starts his ascent, Sehun has his usual teasing grin etched on his face.

Junmyeon rolls his eyes at him, finding his footing easily, a little surprised himself that he still has the muscle memory of his fifteen-year-old self. It’s a blessing, really, for fifteen-year-old Junmyeon (and apparently twenty-three-year-old Sehun now) that his house is built with a flat rooftop. He used to climb up here to listen to his emo songs from his iPod when he’d argued with his mother about something stupid.

“Wow, you’re really good at this that it’s actually hot,” Sehun whistles as he watches.

“I’ve had enough practice,” Junmyeon huffs, rolling his eyes again to make his point despite the obvious dangers of rolling his eyes when he’s dangling by the side of a wall ten feet up in the air. He hopes the eye-rolling distracts Sehun from his burning cheeks. Sehun still reaches out to pull Junmyeon up at the last few seconds even when Junmyeon’s has established his capableness of scaling the wall, because he’s a dick like that.

A makeshift bed made out of Jongin’s old plushies and a bunch of blankets (two Pororo printed, one Yu-Gi-Oh, and one Barbie) right in the middle of the rooftop is what greets Junmyeon when he arrives at the rooftop. Sehun pulls at Junmyeon’s wrist, walking towards the pile of blankets, hand never really uncurling from Junmyeon’s wrist from when he pulled Junmyeon up.

“You did all this? When?” Junmyeon asks, heart swelling in his chest at the effort that Sehun had put into making all this just for him.

Sehun sits down on top of the Barbie blanket and pats the empty space next to him, before answering, “After we got home, duh. I couldn’t sleep, and I saw someone post a picture of a sunset on Instagram and got inspired. I climbed out of Jongin’s balcony window and did everything without waking him up. Your brother really sleeps like a dead person.”

“What you did was low-key dangerous, you know that? I didn’t know you were such a mush like this.”

Sehun hits Junmyeon’s side with a Rilakkuma plushie. Taking a seat next to Sehun, Junmyeon laughs.

Junmyeon has never been a person that’s particularly fond of romantic, cheesy gestures like these, because what if conversation lulls between the two of them and things become awkward? It’s especially worse when it’s something that he never expected to get, because then he wouldn’t have any idea what’s going to happen. But Sehun is so calm, so happy, and so excited, that Junmyeon feels all his worries melt away at the sight of Sehun’s face.

“The sunrise is in five minutes,” Sehun says, lying down. Junmyeon follows suit. “According to Google, a typical sunrise lasts for about eight minutes. So please don’t fall asleep, grandpa.”

Junmyeon attempts to make a jab at Sehun’s bicep, but Sehun dodges it expertly, leaving breathless giggles in the wind. When Junmyeon joins in to lie down next to him, Sehun quickly smothers Junmyeon with a bunch of blankets, before finally draping half of himself on top of Junmyeon’s body easily, face snuggled into the crook of Junmyeon’s neck. It feels really, really nice.

It’s stupefying to Junmyeon how natural everything always feels when he’s with Sehun, as he rests his hand on the dip of Sehun’s waist, chin on top of Sehun’s head. He thought that things would at least be awkward after the events that unfolded last night, but Junmyeon always learns about how wrong he is when it comes to Sehun.

“You’re such a big baby, Sehunnie,” Junmyeon coos, rubbing Sehun’s side gently with his hand. “I’m at least half a foot shorter than you, but you’re exuding big small spoon energy right now and that’s not fair.”

Sehun laughs into Junmyeon’s chest, shrill and loud, body shaking on top of Junmyeon’s. Warmth tickles Junmyeon’s insides.

“Holy shit,” Sehun says through his giggles, warm breath fanning Junmyeon’s neck, “That’s the second pop-culture reference you said out loud in the past five minutes. That’s funny. And cute, and you’re cute.”

The softness in Sehun’s words makes Junmyeon look down at him, heart dithering in his chest when he meets Sehun’s amused eyes halfway. For a moment, all they do is just look at each other, until Sehun asks, again, “Um, can I kiss you?” and Junmyeon laughs again.

“Half of you is already on top of me, Sehun—so that’s a yes—why would you even—”

Sehun cuts him off effectively with a kiss, hands curling into Junmyeon’s hair as he pulls himself up. He’s smiling, and Junmyeon is smiling, too, his heart expanding in his chest even when he thought it was impossible for his heart to feel even fuller. Then Sehun’s hand slides from Junmyeon’s hair down onto the sides of his face, before stopping on his cheeks to cup them.

The sky is lightening above them, and Sehun’s face lit by streaks of the dark orange sun under him looks utterly divine.

When Junmyeon leans down to give him another kiss, though, Sehun stops him, smushing his face that’s still in his hands, pushing his cheeks together so hard Junmyeon has to pinch Sehun’s arm to make him let go.

“Less kissing and more sunrise watching,” Sehun commands, lying his head on top of Junmyeon’s chest, right on top of Junmyeon’s heart. The weight of Sehun’s body on top of his is comforting.

Then, he turns Junmyeon’s head to face upwards into the sky, instead of downwards looking at him.

“I never understood why people loved sunrises so much,” Junmyeon says wistfully, an idea creeping into his mind. He waits for a beat before he adds, “Then it dawned upon me.”

Sehun socks Junmyeon’s chest weakly at his stupid joke, even when he has a smile on his face. “I can’t believe you just said that when we’re having a moment here.”

He laughs heartily at Sehun, satisfied, before finally looking up at the sky properly.

It’s only then when Junmyeon registers just how pretty the sky is. Junmyeon has seen countless sunrises, but it would be a lie to say that he’s not always startled by its beauty.

The sun peeking through the shadows of clouds paints the sky in a plethora of warm colors, of dark orange and yellow and pink and then golden that looks absolutely breathtaking when mixed all together. The cool breeze of air that pushes against his face tastes faintly of the salty ocean air, and for a while, Junmyeon forgets everything but the sight of the sun rising above him.

They watch as the sky lightens with each passing moment in bated breath, the sound of birds chirping in the distance almost whimsical. And then it’s over in what feels just like a heartbeat.

Junmyeon looks down at Sehun again. His eyes are closed now, and his blond hair sticks up in every other direction, golden strands dancing along with the breeze. He can see Sehun’s roots starting to show, dark hair a stark contrast to the platinum blond he’s sporting. It’s somehow… endearing. Like a reminder that shows just how long they’ve spent summer together.

The hues of the now pale blue sky look pretty against his skin. Junmyeon can’t help but feel a little guilty when he looks at Sehun’s sleeping figure—he must’ve been tired from all the driving and all the climbing just to pull this sunrise-watching stunt.

“Turns out that you’re the grandpa, Sehun,” Junmyeon says, voice soft. He feels at peace. 

The next time he gets the chance to watch the sunrise, he knows he’s going to be reminded of Sehun right next to him right now.

*

By the end of the week, Sehun creates a group chat named “Operation Make Junmyeon Kim Love Summer Again” that consists of the two of them and Jongin, despite Junmyeon’s protests on how unnecessary the group is when they see each other every morning, and how they’re already doing it anyway with Jongin constantly coercing him to join in on their summer escapades.

Junmyeon thinks his phone is a little broken now thanks to the stupid group. Had he known that his phone would immediately be abused with a violent series of vibrating within the first few minutes of being a member, he would have known better than to accept it. Jongin and Sehun had sent thirty-two links on where they should go the following week despite being in the same room and probably right next to each other, too, under the course of two minutes.

The first activity on their schedule starts the following week. Sehun arranges an aquarium date for the three of them in a local sea museum claiming that it’s essential to know more about the ocean as someone who lives right next to the coast. Jongin and Junmyeon’s protests of them practically not living there anymore falls to deaf ears. What Sehun wants, Sehun gets done.

The tour is boring as fuck to the point Jongin falls asleep mid-tour with his face pressed onto the aquarium glass, and despite the photographic evidence that Junmyeon took on his phone, Jongin swears by his mother’s life that he didn’t fall asleep.

Sehun makes Junmyeon his personal photographer for the day, and in return he takes a million candid shots of Junmyeon that simultaneously makes Junmyeon feel super conscious of his appearance but also think of how much storage Sehun actually has on his phone. None of them gets uploaded onto his Instagram page. Junmyeon doesn’t understand when Sehun tells him the cool-toned aquarium pictures don’t match the aesthetic of his feed.

Like this, nothing really changes between them, except for the added bonus of hand-holding and hugging and kissing that leaves Junmyeon always craving for more after each touch.

They take things slow, too. Junmyeon isn’t in a rush to put a label on their relationship and Sehun seems to understand, only keeping his hands to himself at the company of other people, which keeps things interesting when they finally have time for themselves.

It’s always fun to steal kisses when Jongin isn’t looking their way.

*

“Hyung,” there’s something in the way Sehun pronounces the word that makes Junmyeon’s pulse quickens.

They’re on the third grocery store they’ve gone to for the day. Sehun had made Junmyeon drive him around town to find him the blackest shade of hair dye ever, insisting that it’s about time Junmyeon learns the dos and don’ts of dyeing someone’s hair. Junmyeon thinks it’s just an excuse for Sehun to get his hair done for free, but it’s not like he can complain when Sehun has made up his mind.

“Yes?” Junmyeon replies, not looking up from the two boxes of hair dyes he has on each hand that he’d been burning holes into for the past five minutes. It’s _impossible_ to tell the difference between midnight black and pitch black. 

Long fingers ghost over the skin on Junmyeon’s waist before finally wrapping around his stomach completely, and a few moments later, a chin drops onto Junmyeon’s right shoulder.

“What are you looking at?” Junmyeon is supposed to be over this, to finally be used to Sehun’s touches after one too many touches, but his heart still stutters when he feels Sehun’s lips press against the skin on his neck.

Junmyeon is thankful that Sehun can’t see the way his cheeks must be burning bright red right now. He swallows before answering, “I can’t decide which shade is darker between these two.”

“Well, which one do you like better?” this time, Sehun’s lip brushes over the tip of Junmyeon’s ear.

“Midnight black,” Junmyeon says quickly, randomly, brain too preoccupied with the feel of Sehun’s feather-light touches against his skin to make a proper choice.

Without warning, Sehun plucks the said hair dye box out of Junmyeon’s hands, throwing it into the shopping cart that they obviously shouldn’t have picked up because the hair dye is probably the only thing they’re going to buy. Junmyeon misses the weight of Sehun’s body wrapped around his.

“Our job here is done, then,” Sehun concludes, clapping his hand before wrapping his hands around the grocery cart’s handle, ready to make his way to the cashier to pay.

“Huh?” Junmyeon blinks. Somehow, his facial expression makes Sehun grin. Then, Sehun says, “Out of all the stores we’ve gone to, this is the one place you’d picked a hair dye. So I’m getting the one you like, of course.”

“Why?”

“Because I like you, hyung,” Sehun says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the whole world, rolling his eyes as he adds, “The nicest shade of black won’t matter to me if you think it’s ugly.”

Junmyeon laughs. It’s endearing how Sehun always has his best interests at heart, even when his ways of being cheesy and romantic are hidden under layers of sarcasm and fake nonchalance. He tries not to think of what would happen to him when Sehun finally stops crossing oceans for him. Of what would happen when Sehun finally figures out that he can do so much better than him.

Wiping away the thoughts from his head with a smile, Junmyeon gets on his tip toes to mess Sehun’s hair warmly, and it earns him a jab to the exposed part of his stomach where his shirt had ridden up. It grows into a tickle fight between them right in the middle of the hair product aisle for a good three minutes before an employee comes over to tell them to cut it out because they’re scaring some kids.

They end up staying for another thirty minutes in the grocery store, making fun of product names and brand logos like they’ve never seen them before, bitching about the ridiculous price of some luxury hair product that have the exact same ingredients as the conditioner sitting on the row right across it like no one else is in the grocery store with them.

It’s… incredible how Sehun makes something as mundane as grocery shopping fun. He makes shopping together feel like a routine they’ve done a thousand times before, easily wrapping himself around Junmyeon like a stray puppy with his hands around Junmyeon’s waist, chin making Junmyeon’s shoulders its permanent home for the night.

On their way home, they sing on the top of their lungs to their Spotify playlist with the windows to Junmyeon’s Prius rolled down during the whole drive. It’s a sad way to mimic their driving-with-the-top-rolled-down experience, but Sehun claims it’s worth the try.

By the time they pull up at Junmyeon’s driveway, Sehun is positively exhausted, passed out on the passenger’s seat, his head lolling from one side to another. Junmyeon kisses Sehun awake in the passenger seat, and it terrifies him a little that the best part of kissing Sehun isn’t heat of his wet lips pressed against his own, or his hands that leaves burning pleasure on his skin, but the tingling feeling inside his chest that comes with each press of their lips.

Kissing Sehun is always wonderful. Once Junmyeon has gotten used to the taste of Sehun, it’s almost impossible to keep his hands off him.

They kiss again in the dark hallway in front of Junmyeon’s room silently before parting ways, and Junmyeon falls asleep thinking of the press of Sehun’s lips on his, and just how much more he wants it to be more than that.

*

Contrary to Jongin’s itinerary that has both him and Sehun doing extreme sports almost every day at the beginning of summer, Sehun’s timetable is mellower, and it consists of more flexible activities that don’t pressure Junmyeon into feeling like he should have fun. Mostly, the best parts of their days are the part where they have to find new ways to steal kisses around Jongin.

It’s a brilliant way to keep their excitement level high.

They try to make a second attempt in berry picking, driving up to the field on a day where the sun is tolerable. The only thing they learn from that day is that false advertising is Very Real with a capital V and R because they s _till_ don’t enjoy berry-picking the second time around. It doesn’t matter if it’s done even in a cool day out, because all you do is just pick berries. From berry trees. Junmyeon nearly throws his back out and Jongin spends more time on his phone instead of filling up his berry bucket, so Sehun concludes that the trip is a fail an hour into the picking session.

On days where they’re too lazy to go out, they spend the day with the kids at home, with Sehun teaching Raeon the weirdest tricks he has up his sleeves, effectively reminding Junmyeon of how painfully attractive Sehun’s great-with-children quality is. It makes him think of stupid things like having children with Sehun and it scares him shitless every time. Jongin sleeps a lot during the day as July comes to an end, always spending his nights out with Yoona until the crack of dawn.

Junmyeon decides he likes Yoona a lot by the way she takes up most of Jongin’s nights, which means more time for him and Sehun doing stupid shit together like watch movies from their movie list, playing games on Jongin’s iPad Pro, or simply talking about the weather that day with their legs tangled under the sheets until they fall asleep. It must be fate that the empty space right next to Junmyeon on his bed provides the exact size for Sehun’s body.

Jungah, though, never fails to tease Jongin about hitting puberty again with how love-struck he acts every time Yoona is brought up.

Being on the receiving end of Junmyeon’s family’s teasings during dinners _suck_ —Junmyeon knows the feeling firsthand. So, at night, when everyone is asleep and Jongin isn’t home yet, Junmyeon and Sehun laughs quietly in between their kisses, talking about Jongin’s karma for being the snitch he’d been that day when Junmyeon made Sehun drunk.

*

Junmyeon finishes his work in mid-August. It’s still a long way to the end of summer, with summer starting mid-June this year.

By then, they’d already run out of things to do in Santa Barbara except for obviously going to the beach, so Sehun merges their first ever beach day together with Junmyeon’s celebratory beach day for finally finishing his paper.

Sehun is determined to make it the best beach day ever in Junmyeon’s life, and it’s a little funny how they’ve spent almost every breathing moment next to each other throughout the whole summer, but never actually went to the beach together.

Thankfully, when Junmyeon wakes up the morning of Sehun’s “thoroughly-planned” beach day, it’s not scorching hot to the point he wants to claw his clothes off his body.

Rahee and Raeon had been the ones to wake him up with their signature press-their-hand-on-uncle’s-face-until-he-wakes-up move, and Junmyeon honestly misses their method even when they refuse to leave his bed after it, with Raeon plastering himself onto Junmyeon’s shoulders and Rahee already starting to make a small fort out of Junmyeon’s pillows.

Sehun watches all of this unfold without offering a helping hand at all, standing by the door with an amused look on his face and something else altogether Junmyeon can’t pinpoint, already dressed in his beach clothes while leaning onto Junmyeon’s doorframe.

“Kids, why don’t you get your toys ready while Uncle Myeon gets ready?” Sehun says when Junmyeon eventually sends him a look that screams help. Raeon is the first to take off, jumping off Junmyeon’s bed dangerously while yelling a prompt “Okay!”, and Rahee follows suit a couple of seconds later, abandoning her newly built pillow fort completely.

When the kids are gone, Junmyeon squints at Sehun bitterly, and slumps back into his bed face first, grumbling, “I still don’t know how you do it. How are you so fucking good with kids?”

Sehun jumps into his bed right after that, dropping his body on top of Junmyeon’s mercilessly, cackling like a madman when Junmyeon thrashes under him, only getting off him when Junmyeon’s begging starts to sound breathless.

“Why, is it hot?” Sehun teases as he sits on top of Junmyeon. Junmyeon mumbles against his pillow angrily in reply.

“Of course I’m good with kids,” Sehun says, pushing Junmyeon’s hair away from his face when Junmyeon finally resurfaces, red in the face, “I’ve always wanted to be a kindergarten teacher if my dancing thing falls through. Didn’t I tell you that already?”

Junmyeon is stunned. He doesn’t remember Sehun ever saying that _at all_. Images of Sehun and kids that look like tiny little Sehuns resurfaces in Junmyeon’s mind instantaneously, and Junmyeon has to shake his head to kill his intrusive thoughts, blood rushing in his ears. Why does Sehun being a kindergarten teacher sound _so_ attractive?

“Come on, old hag,” Sehun taps Junmyeon’s nose with his finger playfully, and Junmyeon swats Sehun’s hand away from his face with an angry pout. Sehun laughs again.

“If you call me old hag again, I’m not getting off this bed at all,” Junmyeon says without any real heat, crawling closer towards Sehun, pressing a hard finger onto Sehun’s chest as some kind of a warning. Giggling, Sehun catches Junmyeon’s outstretched finger with his hands, using his trapped finger to pull Junmyeon closer to him.

With one swift tug, Sehun has Junmyeon sitting on top of him, thighs rubbing against each other’s as he places his hand on Junmyeon’s waist. The strength and agility in Sehun movements lights a fire inside Junmyeon’s stomach, and Sehun looks so, so pretty under him like this that Junmyeon forgets about the exhaustion in his bones entirely.

“I don’t mind, really,” Sehun smiles innocently. His thumbs pressing into the skin on Junmyeon’s hips and his fingers tapping against Junmyeon’s lower back, though, is anything but.

Junmyeon is about to lean down to coax the innocence out of Sehun’s smile with a smirk on his own face when the door to his bedroom opens, making him jump in shock, tumbling out of his bed and onto the floor with a loud thud.

“Uncle Myeon, are you okay?” it’s Rahee, and she’s clutching onto her barbie beach bag for her life, probably shaken at Junmyeon’s unceremonious tumble out of his own bed, too.

Sehun laughs like a madman before answering breathlessly, “Yes, yes. He’s okay. Are you ready now, sweetie?”

“I’m… ready,” Rahee’s voice is small, uncertain.

“Let’s go, then,” Sehun replies, looking at Junmyeon with laughter in his eyes.

Junmyeon throws a lone sock he finds under the bed at Sehun’s face in return.

*

The day passes by in a blink of an eye.

Normally, time at the beach would pass by excruciatingly slowly for Junmyeon. At the beach, everything moves at a one frame per second rate under the harsh sunlight, his senses heightened specifically to pinpoint everything wrong with being in the beach. The sand would dig into his skin painfully, the sun would feel like it’ll blind his eyes at some point, and the shrill screams of kids having fun around him reminds him of the screams from those gore horror movies Jongin used to make him watch when they were kids.

But with Sehun, it’s a blur of bright colors and warm smiles, and so, so much laughter that his cheeks and stomach hurt by the time they have to go home.

They don’t do much, really.

They start off with putting on sunscreen on each of them (Junmyeon takes his extra sweet time lathering the potion onto Sehun’s back because holy shit, Sehun’s body is a piece of fucking art) before the kids scurry off to do what kids do in the beach, and for a while, all Junmyeon and Sehun do is talk while watching the kids, the sun beating down on their sunscreen-clobbered legs—Sehun, the incessant miracle worker, had scored them an umbrella without having to fight another family for it. They tell each other stories and jokes and laughs until their mouths get tired, as Junmyeon observes the wide expanse of… chaos that unfolds in front of him, the light blue sky a soft contrast to the almost green waves.

The sun reflects prettily against the ocean waves, the sound of it crashing against the shore a constant reminder of the fact that they’re _on_ a beach.

Then there’s the sandcastle building session after that, where Raeon excitedly chatters off about some new cartoon he’s watched yesterday as Rahee diligently scoops up more seawater to solidify the sand from time to time. Junmyeon destroys the sandcastle more than he helps building it, so Rahee shoos him by his third attempt to build a mini tower at the top of their castle.

Sehun giggles at that, telling Rahee and Raeon that they’re doing the right thing by sending Junmyeon off, and Junmyeon kicks Sehun’s back discreetly when he walks back to their beach mat. Junmyeon makes himself useful by handing each of them their popsicles that eventually stops the sandcastle building activity altogether, and the kids return to playing tag with someone’s dachshund running free around the beach.

After that, Junmyeon and Sehun play a short game of beach volleyball when the family next to them invites them, and for the first time in a long while, Junmyeon feels stupidly, inexplicably, colossally happy. The sweat beads that roll off his forehead and back feels more like a reminder of how alive he is, as cheesy as that sounds, and the way his lungs burn as it gasps for more air transports him back right to when he used to play beach volleyball in a team with Jungah and Junghee. Jongin and his parents would always be on the opposing team.

He used to think he’s forgotten how he used to have fun at the beach, but today, he remembers it all as clear as day.

The most dumbfounding part about the whole ordeal is that Sehun really didn’t plan much, only packing along a beach mat and some snacks along with a few popsicles and cold drinks in the cooler to last them the entire day. There’s nothing new about the things he’s done today, everything the same, generic beach activity anyone going to the beach would do.

But there’s Sehun with him, and Junmyeon thinks Sehun might just be some kind of a sorcerer. That, or Sehun had drugged his popsicles to make him enjoy the day more than he should. He doesn’t even think about how sickly-yellow his skin looks under the sun, and that says _a lot_ about the effect Sehun has on him.

Whatever Sehun is, he knows that everyone at least needs a Sehun in their lives.

Junmyeon goes home with a sunburn on his back, courtesy of falling asleep face-first into their Rahee’s beach bag after the intense game of beach volleyball—he doesn’t even remember when he took his shirt off—but his heart is full, even when Sehun laughs the whole drive back home at Junmyeon’s pain.

*

Out of all the pictures Junmyeon has ever taken for Sehun, it’s _his_ face that gets uploaded onto Sehun’s Instagram page that night. It’s one where Junmyeon is asleep with his chest against beach mat, and the skin on his shoulders looks like it’s halfway toasting into the sunburn he’d gone home with.

Junmyeon wants to be mad, for being uploaded into Sehun’s Instagram account without his permission, but mostly because Sehun knew that he was getting his skin burned from the sun when he’d taken the photo, and he did literally nothing to help prevent Junmyeon from getting sunburned.

But when Junmyeon looks at the caption, all the anger bubbles away into almost nothing.

It says: _(my) 31 year old baby,_ and already, there are more than a hundred likes on the photo, despite it being only mere minutes after the picture has gotten uploaded. Right under it, he spots Jongin’s 8 comments filled with tons of emojis and keyboard smashing.

That night, Junmyeon falls asleep dreaming about the sun and the ocean, and he feels like he’s twenty-three all over again.

*

Sehun decides to dye his hair back to black at the end of August.

(By then, the whole house is sporting these gorgeous, bronzy tans, and it’s the first time in _years_ that Junmyeon’s skin is the same shade with the rest of his family in the summertime.)

Sehun chooses a day hotter than berry-picking tragedy hot to do the deed, and Junmyeon refuses to dye his hair in the garden like Sehun had originally asked him to do if the sun is still up in the sky.

Jongin is off to an impromptu hot date with Yoona (as hot as morning dates can be), and Jungah had taken her kids to meet her ex-husband’s parents before they leave for their summer vacation. Junmyeon’s parents had taken the day off to go to a fishing trip in some neighboring city. If there’s anything good to be said about the unbearably hot day, it’s the fact that Junmyeon finally gets some alone, unbothered time with Sehun, because it’s getting harder for him to keep his hands to himself around other people.

Junmyeon and Sehun spend the morning shirtless, sprawled on the living room floor right next to each other, spread-eagle, untouching because according to Sehun, it’s “way too fucking hot for the cute shit we usually do”. They stare at the ceiling fan as they talk about the side effects of wasting electricity and energy influenced by a Buzzfeed post Junmyeon had read that morning.

(Junmyeon had taken up playing Buzzfeed quizzes and browsing through their news page after that one time Sehun sent him a screen capture of a Buzzfeed poll result that, according to him, was utterly tragic. “I can’t believe people think Noah Centineo is hotter than Idris Elba. The bar is on the fucking floor” was how the voice note that followed the screen capture had sounded.)

It lasts for only an hour until they give up and succumb to the comfort of Junmyeon’s air conditioner inside his bedroom. The tiles on their living room had absorbed the sunrays and turned blisteringly hot.

They order Chinese take-out for lunch, Junmyeon still refusing to do any activity outside the confines of his bedroom, at least until the scorching hot sun retreats for the day, and they end up digging up a box of Junmyeon’s old DVDs that are coated with a thin layer of dust Sehun finds when he’s run out of things to entertain himself with.

(They’ve also finished off their movie list.)

Sehun cries when they watch Wall-E, nearly choking on the orange chicken he ends up spitting out anyway because it had been in his mouth too long. Junmyeon spends the rest of the afternoon teasing Sehun for it even as they talk about conspiracy theories based on the movie, legs tangled together under the sheets like it always is, getting into a heated conversation about how Eve isn’t a girl and _holy fuck, Sehun, who ever said Wall-E was a boy?_

_Holy fuck, hyung. We misgendered a fucking robot._

When 5 p.m rolls by, they’re both drifting in and out of sleep on Junmyeon’s bed with a new sleep playlist they’d built on a whim blaring in the background, Sehun curled into a ball next to Junmyeon, fully committed into his role as a small spoon he’d assigned himself as despite him being literally two heads taller than Junmyeon.

“Sehun,” Junmyeon calls, placing a hand on the exposed skin on Sehun’s waist where his shirt has ridden up. Sehun is wearing his Yu-Gi-Oh shirt because they’d been too lazy to get a shirt from Jongin’s room, and it’s a little too small on him. “It’s almost seven.”

Sehun mumbles an incoherent reply. Even though Junmyeon can’t make out the words, he knows Sehun is whining for more time to sleep. He’s about to leave Sehun alone and give him more time to sleep when Sehun reaches for his hand resting his waist, intertwining their fingers together before pulling Junmyeon closer to him.

“Can’t believe you just let me sleep without at least hugging me,” Sehun clicks his tongue in mock-annoyance, eyes still closed. Junmyeon chuckles, pulling Sehun closer to him to appease him, digging his chin into Sehun’s shoulder. Sehun lets out a breathy giggle in satisfaction.

For a while, all Junmyeon does is listen to the sound of Sehun’s steady breathing, committing the feel of Sehun’s back against his chest to memory. His thoughts run wild with images of Sehun throughout the whole summer when a question bubbles in his throat.

“Sehunnie,” Junmyeon calls again, this time adding the extra endearing syllable, “what about you? I’ve told you everything about my love life. I want to know about yours, too.” The question sounds completely random, but it had been sitting in the back of Junmyeon’s mind for a while now.

“Hold on,” Sehun says, turning around to face Junmyeon with a frown on his face that’s paired with a confused smile, “what do you mean you’ve told me everything… you’ve told me about that one motherfucker and that’s it.”

Junmyeon feels himself blanch and blush at the same time. It’s equal parts embarrassing and not embarrassing to just have one romantic interest at age thirty-one. On one hand, it means that Junmyeon is a man with little to no experience with dating at all, but on the other hand, it means that he’s somewhat… loyal?

“I meant what I said. After Kris, I couldn’t bring myself back into the dating game.”

Sehun squints at him, taking Junmyeon’s face into his hands—a habit that Junmyeon has learned Sehun loves—mouth pressed into a thin line. “That’s…” Sehun pulls at his cheeks, lips now puckered, “somewhat sad and sweet at the same time? But wait a minute—does this mean you’re like, a virgin?”

Junmyeon feels his face burn at Sehun’s question, heat spreading through his body in a heartbeat.

“Yah. Sehun Oh, what do you take me for? Of course I’m not,” Junmyeon says, exasperated, pushing Sehun’s fingers off of his face. Sehun laughs, eyes not even opening, shoulders hunched together as he claps his hand, way too amused for Junmyeon’s liking. Then, quickly, Junmyeon mutters before he loses the momentum, “not with women, at least.”

This makes Sehun’s laughter stop abruptly. With wide eyes, Sehun asks, “Wait—you’re into women, too?”

“No—it’s a long story, just—please stop asking about my sex life now, this isn’t fun,” Junmyeon stammers, face heating up in Sehun’s hands that have returned to his face. Sehun’s face softens then, smile returning to his face easily, and he lets go of his hold on Junmyeon’s face gently.

“Okay, okay. Then I’ll walk you through the amazing love life of Sehun Oh as you dye my hair downstairs, deal?” Sehun proposes, already sitting up and placing his feet on the floor next to Junmyeon’s bed.

“Fine,” Junmyeon caves in, pouting as he sits up on his bed to follow Sehun that’s already making his way out of his bedroom. He takes the rest of the hair dyeing equipment that’s left on his study, Sehun already bringing the first half of it.

When he catches up to Sehun, Sehun takes his hand in his. They walk down the stairs, through the living room, and into the back porch with their hands linked together silently, and Junmyeon thinks, despite all the cheese, that he could really get used to this.

The sky is just starting to darken outside when they arrive at the porch. Sehun arranges the rattan chair on the back porch to face the garden instead of each other while Junmyeon places the hair dye and its utensils on the table right next to them. When they’re done, Sehun is quick to a drape a towel over his own shoulder as he sits down on the chair, telling Junmyeon on which products he should mix and which utensils he should use.

“My first real ever boyfriend was this boy from my sophomore year in high school named Chad Ryan,” Sehun starts without warning, almost making Junmyeon spill the hair dye chemical onto his hands, “I know, he sounds like a douche, but that’s only because he is. That’s the first and last ever white dick I’ll ever get myself in a relationship with in my life. It lasted like, for a whole month, and then he punched me because I said something mean I can’t remember and we never talked again.”

That makes Junmyeon laugh. He puts on a pair of plastic gloves and begins to mix the dye with the developer.

“I dated a senior girl during my junior year after that—I’d been testing out the waters, trying to see if I could expand my horizon, only to realize that I’m not into girls at all. But I love Sunmi noona,” Sehun explains, face going through a series of animated emotions as he goes, “she’s the first person I ever came out too, and she’d been super understanding. Last time I heard, she’s super successful and is working on this non-profit LGBT organization, I think. If her Facebook profile isn’t, that is.”

The easiest part comes then, where Junmyeon clips Sehun’s hair with Junghee’s old salon clippers after dividing it into a few sections. Junmyeon picks up the synthetic brush from the table now, and tells Sehun quietly that he’s going to start dyeing his hair soon. Sehun looks up at Junmyeon with a proud smile as he nods.

Junmyeon starts with the roots as the YouTube video that Sehun had shown him earlier told him to, dipping the brush gingerly into the hair dye paste. The first swipe of hair dye on Sehun’s hair feels almost therapeutic to Junmyeon. Junmyeon can see now why Junghee had been so hell-bent on wanting to be the one to dye Junmyeon’s hair that one day in high school.

“And then let’s see… hmmm,” Sehun rubs his chin for added effect, “The most recent ex I have is Baekhyun. Remember him? I think I’ve talked about him to you at one point, at least. He’d been my roommate and the first person I had a real adult relationship with.”

“But?” Junmyeon’s heart thrums in his chest. Something sits uncomfortably at the bottom of Junmyeon’s stomach at the idea of Sehun and someone else that isn’t… him. He wills away the thoughts with each stroke of the brush against Sehun’s hair, focusing his thoughts into getting each strand coated with the hair dye paste.

It takes a moment before Sehun answers him. “But then we realized that it’s not really an adult relationship at all, because we get really immature with each other. I think we fought more than we ever loved, really. We’re still friends now, though—I wouldn’t be who I am today if it wasn’t for him.”

Junmyeon hums, heartbeat slowing down. He knows he has nothing to worry about. It’s not like Sehun is his boyfriend anyway, right?

“It’s your turn to elaborate on your sexcapades with women, now,” Junmyeon can hear the teasing smile on Sehun’s face even when he’s not looking at his face.

Graphic images of women Junmyeon never wants to think of ever again flashes before his eyes at Sehun’s words, and he’s disappointed that he has hair dye in his hands because if there weren’t any, he would have reached over to pinch Sehun’s cheeks to scold him.

“Sehun Oh!” Junmyeon settles with tugging at Sehun’s sideburns to show his annoyance, “it was not a sexcapade! It was just sex. And I don’t want to talk about them, please, all of them were mistakes.”

“ _Hyung_ ,” Sehun swats Junmyeon’s hand away, producing a sound that’s a mix of laughter and whine at the same time, turning around to pout at Junmyeon right after. Junmyeon’s heart skips a stupid beat, but he just rolls his eyes at Sehun.

Conversation lulls between them after that. The silence is calming. The rhythmic sound of the brush dipping into the hair dye paste, the sound of birds flying in the sky and the gentle sound of the ocean waves crashing onto the shore in the far, far distance feels good when they’ve spent the day talking and talking and filling the silence between them with music instead of real silence.

It goes on for a while like that, with Sehun sitting obediently as Junmyeon works on his hair, staring at the garden in front of them, sometimes switching positions or propping his chin on his hand to make himself more comfortable, until Junmyeon clears his throat awkwardly, making Sehun turn to look up at him which earns him another tug on his hair. Sehun ignores the tug, quirking one eyebrow up at Junmyeon to serve as a silent question as to why he’d cleared his throat.

“Irene,” Junmyeon says, twisting Sehun’s head so it faces frontwards again. “Was my classmate in university. She’d been so nice to me and so polite with her advances that I felt bad about turning her down. We were drunk after a night out drinking with other kids from university and then it kind of just happened. I didn’t know what I was thinking. I think I’d been horrible, though, because she completely stopped her advances on me after that.”

Sehun laughs at the last part. “I’m sure it wasn’t _that_ horrible.”

“Oh, it was. I may have been drunk and gay but I do know how an unsatisfied person sounds and looks, and she wasn’t that,” Junmyeon chuckles.

Sehun makes a noise of acknowledgment. “What about after her?”

“Um, there were a couple of friends or colleagues after her, but they were all forgettable,” Junmyeon answers, smiling a little wistfully as he remembers his stupid, younger self doing questionable things to feel like he’d belong. It’s been so long since he’s last done that, though, and he’s a little proud of himself.

“I think you give yourself way too little credit. You must’ve charmed the pants off of them with your dazzling personality,” Sehun winks up at him, “before they realized that was all there is to you.”

Junmyeon tugs on Sehun’s hair again. Sehun laughs, loudly, shoulders hunched with his knees pressed to his chest, and even without looking at his face, the laughter is contagious. Junmyeon finds himself laughing softly along.

“Why girls, though?” Sehun asks after he’s calmed down, leaning back into the chair again to let Junmyeon continue working on his hair.

Junmyeon replies with a one-shouldered shrug that he realizes Sehun can’t see.

“I don’t know. I think it’s because nobody except my closest friends ever really knew that I was into dudes? So I never really tried with them. I was scared, I guess. I never really liked anyone enough to act upon it until…” Junmyeon trails, throat going dry. Suddenly, his thoughts are occupied Sehun.

 _Until you._ The words hang on the tip of his tongue, weighing down on his heart. He can’t bring himself to say it.

“Until you decide you’re ready, of course,” Sehun finishes Junmyeon’s sentence. He can hear the smile in Sehun’s voice.

“Maybe,” Junmyeon rasps. He feels shallow for not being able to say the words. Sehun deserves to know that, after everything he’s done for Junmyeon, but the moment has passed now.

“You should really meet my friends, by the way. All of them are at least twenty percent gay—you’ll feel like you belong right away.”

Junmyeon hums. When he looks up in front of him, the sun is setting.

“Look in front of you, Sehunnie,” Junmyeon says, “the sun is setting.”

Unlike the sunrise they’d watched together last time, the sky is a bloody mix of rich, vibrant colors. The sun is a crisp circle hidden behind the dark purple clouds—so dark it almost looks black, casting a layer of tangerine glow over everything Junmyeon sees, yet all Junmyeon can think of is how beautiful Sehun must look under all this.

So he bends over with his gloved hands behind his back to dig his chin into Sehun’s shoulders. Sehun’s shoulders is much more comfortable than it looks—why hasn’t he done this before? When he narrows his eyes to look at Sehun’s face, he finds out that he’s right. Sehun looks beautiful. Junmyeon realizes now that nature _always_ looks beautiful on Sehun.

Sehun looks beautiful in the morning when the sun rises, the afternoon when the bright unforgiving sun accentuates all of his imperfections, and even now as the sun sets in front of them, a blush of warm colors reflected on his skin. Later, when the moon is up in the sky in place of the sun, Junmyeon knows he’ll look beautiful, too.

Junmyeon thinks he’s thoroughly besotted.

“I can’t believe you just made us watch a romantic sunset while I dye your freaking hair,” Junmyeon says, pressing a gentle kiss on Sehun’s forehead, unable to resist even when he can feel Sehun’s hair dye sticking to his skin. In a flash, Sehun curls his hand around Junmyeon’s shirt, pulling him forward to capture his lips in a kiss.

The kiss is sweet, and it has both of them smiling by the end of it, and they sadly have to part ways because Junmyeon’s back is killing him and the hair dye smells _really_ bad. Sehun presses wet kisses alongside Junmyeon’s jaw as he stands back up, making loud, smooching sounds that has Junmyeon begging for him to stop even when he knows he clearly enjoys it.

“Um, guys?”

Junmyeon can recognize that voice anywhere from a fifty feet radius. He turns around so fast he nearly gives himself whiplash, meeting Jongin’s shocked face that mirrors his own, and Junmyeon feels his stomach fall to the bottom of the floor.

“Shit.”

*

“I knew something was up between the two of you,” Jongin says, pacing around Junmyeon’s bedroom with his hands on his hips. “You guys have been texting non-stop like sick lovebirds. I _know_ Sehun had been disappearing off at night into god knows where. I just thought that he’d felt too hot inside my bedroom. It was after that movie date you had without me, wasn’t it? Something was different with Sehun that night. Then you guys were all touchy and affectionate after that, and—wow. I can’t believe I didn’t notice it.”

After Jongin arrived, Junmyeon and Sehun had quickly finished their hair-dyeing session, Junmyeon unspeaking. It has Sehun frowning at Junmyeon worriedly by the end of it, but Junmyeon can’t find it in him to say anything to Sehun.

When it’s time for them to retreat back into their own rooms, it’s like some kind of a wordless conversation had unfolded between them with Jongin going into Junmyeon’s bedroom with him and Sehun going back alone to Jongin’s bedroom.

“It wasn’t a date,” Junmyeon mutters, looking at the floor. He doesn’t know why his heart is beating as fast as it is right now, why he feels so nervous when it’s just _Jongin_. Christ, he’s even sitting on his bed with his hands on his knees like a child waiting for their parent to finish berating them.

Honestly, though, it feels a lot like it.

“Hyung,” Jongin laughs, a little hysterical, completing another lap in front of Junmyeon, “Out of all the things I just said, that’s really all you heard?”

Junmyeon purses his lips. “Well it’s because we’re not dating.”

“What?” Jongin sputters, stopping in his tracks. “What do—”

“I mean we never—we never really talked about it. I just,” Junmyeon adds hastily, “I don’t know.”

Eyes still watching Junmyeon, Jongin takes a seat next to him on his bed carefully. Then, he says, “I’m not insinuating anything.”

Junmyeon can’t stop staring at the floor.

“Sehun’s a great guy. He’s my best friend—I know that he’s good for you, and you for him, too,” Jongin places a comforting hand on Junmyeon’s shoulder. Half of Junmyeon wants to shrug it off.

“I know that he’s good for me, Jongin,” Junmyeon’s voice is small, so small that he can barely even hear himself, “but maybe even too good for me.”

“That’s bullshit.”

A wave of agitation washes over Junmyeon at Jongin’s words.

“It’s _not_ bullshit,” he says, looking up at Jongin with furrowed brows, his heart a hummingbird in his chest. “Sehun is amazing—he’s young, even younger than _you_ —and he has his whole life ahead of him. While I’m just me, Jongin, a man so scared of trying anything new that no one wants to be friends with him anymore. I mean, I still tell myself and tell other people that I hate summer, for fuck’s sake, and I’m thirty-one. Like, what does that even mean? What does that say about _me_? What makes you think I’m good for him?”

Jongin’s grip on his shoulder falters.

“You’re a great person, hyung. I tell you that time and time again,” Jongin says, face serious, “But if you can’t see that, then that’s on you. I just don’t want it to jeopardize whatever you have with Sehun right now.”

Junmyeon sighs, running an exasperated hand through his hair.

“You’re both very important people to me, and honestly, it would suck if anything ever happens between you guys.” Jongin mumbles the last part of his sentence. Junmyeon feels a lump in his throat. He wouldn’t want that, too.

“I…” Junmyeon tries to say anything, something, but nothing comes to his mind. Jongin looks at him softly, gaze understanding.

“You don’t have to say anything, hyung.” Jongin smiles softly. “At the end of the day, it’s your relationship with him, and it’s up to you what you want to do with it. Just know that whatever decision you make, I’ll support you. You know that, right?”

Junmyeon returns the smile. “I know.”

“I love you, hyung,” Jongin cringes as he says it, and Junmyeon feels a little better at his words, smile widening.

“I love you too, Nini,” he pats Jongin’s head softly.

When Jongin leaves the room, the door shuts with a deafening click.

*

It’s half past midnight when Junmyeon hears a soft knock on his bedroom door. His heart misses a beat at the sound.

“Come on in,” Junmyeon calls out nervously. He’s lying on his bed wide awake, frozen in the same spot for the past hour or so, drowning in his own morbid thoughts. He’s also pointedly ignoring his phone that had been vibrating off the hook for the last thirty minutes.

It’s pitch dark in his bedroom—dark enough that he can’t tell if his eyes are opened or not, but Junmyeon can tell that it’s Sehun. The light shining from the hallway outlines Sehun’s build perfectly, from his broad shoulders to his lean waist, and even in the middle of his heavy thoughts, Junmyeon finds his thoughts drifting to how much he wants Sehun.

When the door closes and Junmyeon can no longer tell where Sehun is, his thoughts turn heavy again.

“Hey,” Sehun greets softly, climbing into Junmyeon’s bed right, dipping the bed with his weight. Junmyeon greets him back with the same amount of softness, hands quickly finding its way around Sehun’s body. Their fingers lace together under the blanket.

It’s warm—Junmyeon’s air conditioner is taking the break it deserves, and their palms pressed to each other’s feels a little sticky after a while, but none of them lets go. Junmyeon listens to the sound of Sehun’s breathing for a while, gathering his thoughts together in his head, heartbeat slowing down in his chest, matching the pace of Sehun’s steady breathing.

“You’re ignoring me,” Sehun finally says, voice low and somewhat hesitant.

Junmyeon runs a thumb over Sehun’s knuckles in return. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Why?” this time, Sehun’s voice is small, and Junmyeon hates how it sounds like that.

“I don’t know,” Junmyeon answers, truthful, voice almost as small as Sehun’s. He’s gotten so used to Sehun understanding him, Sehun twisting his arm to cater to his needs, that the last thing he expects Sehun to is to let go of their intertwined fingers and say, “Well I’m going to need a better answer than that.”

The cold from his hand at the loss of Sehun’s warmth spreads through the rest of his body in a flash. His biggest fear is coming to live right in front of him right now—Sehun finally getting tired of him and his indecisiveness.

“I—” Junmyeon stutters, panic rising in his chest at the thought of Sehun being upset at him, “You know how bad I am with words—I just have so many thoughts running around inside my head that I can’t find the right words to explain it. I’m sorry, Sehunnie.” Junmyeon shuffles to reach for Sehun’s hand again, but Sehun recoils away from his touch the moment their fingers touch.

“You’re a professor for a living, hyung,” Sehun says with an edge to every syllable, “you explain things to people for a living.”

Junmyeon’s heart dithers painfully in his chest. He turns around to face Sehun, even when he can’t see his face in the dark.

“That was tasteless, sorry,” Sehun mumbles, voice muffled. Junmyeon can tell that Sehun is burrowing his face into his hands.

“No, you’re right,” Junmyeon swallows thickly. “I just… have a lot on my mind and I didn’t want to say the wrong things.”

“If you’re always afraid of doing the wrong thing to do, hyung, you’ll never be able to do anything,” Sehun says a matter-of-factly, “what are you so afraid of? It’s me. You can tell me anything.” The weight on the bed shifts, and then Sehun is turning around to face him, too. “What did Jongin say to you?”

Junmyeon hates that he can’t see Sehun’s face, how the darkness decapitates his ability to match Sehun’s feelings to his voice. He wants to turn on the lights or at least the table lamp right next to his bed so he can see Sehun, but the timing isn’t right, not when Sehun’s voice sounds like that—not when the whole conversation unfolding between them right now sounds like one picked straight out of Junmyeon’s nightmares.

“I’m scared of everything, Sehun.” He answers, heart squeezing in his chest, “Jongin didn’t say much. He just said that he really likes you.”

“And?”

“Then it occurred to me how right Jongin was. You’re a great person, Sehunnie. You’re tall and attractive and smart and funny, and—so, so much more than that. You’re everything anyone wants in a man. And it makes me think about,” Junmyeon pauses to swallow, throat going dry, “how much time you’re wasting with me when you can do so much better. To find someone younger, someone—”

“I thought by now you’d understand just how much I hate it when you talk yourself down like that,” Sehun cuts him off, tone somber, “I know it’s hard for you to see this, but you’re a catch, too, hyung. Honestly, at this point, I don’t know if anything I say or do even matters to you.”

Junmyeon’s heart beats painfully in his chest, pace erratic, and he struggles to choke out a word without sounding like he’s going to cry. “I—of course it does. Everything you do matters to me. _You_ matter to me, Sehunnie.”

“Then why does this all feel so one-sided?” Sehun’s answer makes Junmyeon’s heart ache in his chest. This time, even when he can’t see Sehun’s face, he can hear the sadness pouring out of his words.

Junmyeon’s voice is barely a whisper when he replies, “It’s not.”

“I don’t care if you don’t want to tell the world about… whatever relationship we have right now with each other. What I care about is how much you always think you’re unworthy of me, despite the way I show—” this time, it’s Sehun’s that gets all choked up. It hurts Junmyeon that Sehun is like this because of him, but there’s nothing he can do but listen, the sound of his heart pounding in his ears a terrible background noise to Sehun’s words. “The way I continuously try to show that I like you, like really, really like you a lot. Is that so hard to see?”

“I’m sorry,” is all Junmyeon can say. “I didn’t know you thought of it like that.”

“Well now you do.” Sehun’s voice calms down by a fraction. If Junmyeon squints, he can make out Sehun’s face faintly in the dark, and he thinks Sehun is searching for his face, too.

“Sometimes… I can’t help but think that I want this more than you do,” he pauses to exhale shakily, “and it’s not your fault at all because you’re not responsible for my feelings.”

“Shit, Sehun,” Junmyeon curses, a bunch of terrible emotions washing through him all at once, “I do want this and I’m so fucking sorry that you’d think that. I’m just… scared. I know it’s been eight long years since Kris, but it still terrifies me to let myself feel, especially when you’re perfect like this.”

“I’m not perfect,” Sehun is quick to interject the last part, “and I know that you’re scared and that’s why I feel like I’m being selfish for forcing you into… hanging out with me.”

Junmyeon winces at Sehun’s choice of words. It sounds horrible now that someone had said out loud. Guilt eats at him for making Sehun consciously choose the words.

“Remember when you said how things hurt deeper when you’re twenty-three?” Sehun asks, voice somewhat unsure, “I’m twenty-three, hyung. I’m scared, too.”

“Sehun—”

“Do you think that maybe it would be better if we just… stopped?” Sehun’s words rips Junmyeon’s heart out of his chest.

“No,” Junmyeon has never denied anything so quickly before. And then, after a beat, both sure and unsure, “I don’t want this to stop at all. I want you.”

“You do?” Junmyeon hears the slightest crack in Sehun’s voice, and he thinks that his heart cracks a little, too.

After all the turmoil that’s been going on inside his head for the past few hours, he’d thought that it would be at least hard to answer Sehun’s question, but it’s not.

“Yes.” Junmyeon surprises himself by the clarity of his own voice.

It takes a moment for the weight of Junmyeon’s words to sink in. And then, “Then _please_ , show me, hyung.”

Heat crackles through Junmyeon’s veins like fire. It starts at the bottom of his stomach, hot and heavy, and it travels to the rest of his body like electricity. Junmyeon’s not usually bad at interpreting words, but the slightest hint of desperation in Sehun’s voice makes him think that there’s more to Sehun’s words—makes him think that—

Junmyeon reaches over to turn on his table lamp right behind Sehun, unable to hold himself back from seeing Sehun’s face anymore. When the light hits Sehun’s face, he forgets how to breathe completely. He’d forgotten that Sehun had dyed his hair back to black.

If blond haired Sehun is ethereal, then black haired Sehun isn’t even supposed to exist in this realm. Sehun looks more than just otherworldly, all the softness that comes with his blond hair completely gone, his face only sharp lines and edges now that it’s framed with a dark shade of hair.

Sehun’s eyes are as dark and as uncertain Junmyeon had pictured it to be, but he looks so fucking beautiful, and Junmyeon’s heart skids against his ribcage.

“Okay,” Junmyeon almost doesn’t finish his word, lips already pressed against Sehun’s before Sehun can blink. He tries to part to see Sehun’s reaction, heart throbbing, but fingers fly to his face to yank him closer again, and his lips meets Sehun’s halfway.

There’s an underlying current of urgency in each press of Sehun’s lips, each touch of his fingers on Junmyeon’s body getting increasingly harder, and the same kind of urgency spreads through Junmyeon’s veins.

“Hyung,” Sehun moans, voice music to Junmyeon’s ears, and Junmyeon pulls Sehun body closer to his roughly, hands moving down to latch onto Sehun’s hips. When they recapture each other’s lips, they kiss so hard Junmyeon can hear the sound of their teeth clacking, and it makes laughter bubble in his throat at how desperate they both are when they have all the time in the world.

“Sehun,” he says, parting for air, searching for the younger’s eyes, “why are we rushing?”

Sehun laughs breathlessly as he drags his hands to the base of Junmyeon’s neck. Leaning his forehead against Junmyeon’s, he answers, “I don’t know.” His voice is lighter now, sadness no longer palpable in his tone. It pleases Junmyeon.

This time, when Junmyeon leans in, it’s to place kisses all over Sehun’s face, heart beating wildly in his chest. It goes on like that for a while until Sehun gets impatient and tilts his head to kiss Junmyeon again, warm tongues sliding together softly in sync. Tonight, Sehun tastes simply just like Sehun.

Junmyeon swears he can feel the beat of Sehun’s heart with their chests flushed against each other’s like this—he can feel the way Sehun’s breath staggers when Junmyeon’s hands start to roam around the skin under his shirt. He shudders when Sehun returns the favor, slipping a warm hand under his own shirt, rubbing his thumbs over his nipples, drawing out a low, embarrassing moan that ends up making him laugh. Sehun laughs, too, eyes crinkled into his usual perfect, crescent moons, and Junmyeon kisses it shut with wet, open-mouthed kisses.

The kiss makes Sehun shriek away from Junmyeon in glee, whining as he wipes Junmyeon’s spit off of his eyes, Junmyeon cackling as he chases Sehun with his lips to press more wet kisses down Sehun’s face.

“Stop laughing like that,” Sehun says into Junmyeon’s mouth before placing a kiss right on his chin, “when you laugh like that, you remind me of a Shiba Inu. I love Shiba Inus, but I don’t wanna kiss ‘em.”

Junmyeon socks Sehun’s chest weakly. Sehun pushes Junmyeon’s hair out of his face softly before leaning in to kiss him again, hands curling at the back of Junmyeon’s neck.

They kiss for what feels like minutes, hours, _fuck_ , or even days—Junmyeon doesn’t know how long—yet it feels like he’s still starved for more kisses, more touches, more Sehun, feeling utterly insatiable. His chest is warm and giddy, like the conversation that unfolded before this never happened at all.

Then Sehun pushes Junmyeon down on his back, swinging a leg over his hip with youthful litheness, effectively straddling Junmyeon’s thighs, stealing all the breath away from Junmyeon’s lungs under a second. He looks down at Junmyeon with a gaze that screams affection and want at the same time, and Junmyeon finds himself sinking his fingers into Sehun’s hair, tugging him downwards for a kiss, unthinking.

The urgency returns in their kiss. Sehun nips lightly on Junmyeon’s bottom lip, tongue curling into Junmyeon’s mouth when he gasps in surprise. A moan tumbles out of Junmyeon’s lips when Sehun pinches on a nipple between his fingers, and it seems to have flicked a switch in Sehun because he parts only to give Junmyeon another kiss, harder and deeper, crotch grinding against his shamelessly.

“Fuck, Sehun,” Junmyeon whimpers, feeling just how hard Sehun is on top of him, “fuck—I—I want you.”

Sehun’s eyes snap open at Junmyeon’s request, kisses immediately put to a halt as he searches for Junmyeon’s eyes. He’s on all fours, both hands resting on each side of Junmyeon’s face when he asks, “Are you sure, hyung?”

The intensity in Sehun gaze makes Junmyeon laugh, and he stretches his hands to cup Sehun’s cheeks softly, locking his gaze in place with his. “Yeah. I’ve wanted this for a long time now.”

Sehun smiles at Junmyeon’s words, but the apprehension is unmistakable in his eyes.

“This is like, a big deal though,” Sehun frowns, dipping to press a chaste kiss on Junmyeon’s lips, “Technically, I’m going to be your first, and it’s—”

“You’re already my first kiss,” Junmyeon says softly, pinching Sehun’s cheeks. Sehun’s eyes widens. “All of the kisses I had before you don’t count. They’re all drunken kisses, and I don’t remember any of it. I wouldn’t mind you take another one of my firsts.”

“I—”

“I’m thirty-one, Sehunnie. This is long overdue,” Junmyeon cuts over him gently. On top of him, Sehun’s eyes watches him softly, transfixed, slowly leaning closer until there’s no more gap between the two of them. He’s burying his head into Junmyeon’s neck when he mumbles, “Sorry, my arms got tired. Let me just. Think.”

Junmyeon laughs. He cards his fingers through Sehun’s dark hair, breathing in the scent of Sehun’s shampoo as Sehun gathers his thoughts with his face buried into Junmyeon’s neck.

“Okay, then,” Sehun says after a while, looking up from where his face have previously been buried into Junmyeon’s neck. He rolls around and tugs Junmyeon along with him, hands curling into the fabric of Junmyeon’s Pikachu shirt, pulling Junmyeon into a soft, languid kiss.

*

Junmyeon knows that they should go to sleep, that Sehun should probably return to Jongin’s bedroom before the sun rises, but they can’t stop staring at each other, mumbling random things at each other, even when their eyes are drooping close and Junmyeon can feel sleep trying to shut his brain down.

They’re lying next to each other face-to-face, faces coated with a thin layer of sweat with small, satisfied smiles tugging on each of their lips as they drink up the image of each other. Junmyeon’s heart is so, so full inside his chest.

“Let’s go to the beach tomorrow,” Junmyeon proposes, fingers tracing circles around Sehun’s cheeks.

“Let’s,” Sehun’s voice is warm. Like sunbeams, or that breakfast toast you eat before you leave for school.

The glow from Junmyeon’s table lamp casts beautifully onto Sehun’s face. Sehun looks sated, beautiful, and worn out all at the same time, but what’s most important is that he looks happy.

“Are you happy, Sehunnie?”

Sehun laughs, catching Junmyeon’s finger in his hands, pressing a kiss on the tips of Junmyeon’s fingers before he answers, “I should be the one asking you that, but yes, of course.”

Junmyeon leans forward to press a gentle kiss on Sehun’s shoulder, and Sehun wraps his hands around Junmyeon’s waist after that.

They fall asleep like that, hearts beating together in sync.

*

They do go to the beach the next day.

Raeon, Rahee, and even Jongin tags along, filling the car with more noise than they’re usually accustomed to, but Junmyeon isn’t complaining.

Jongin takes a dive into the ocean the moment they finish setting up their beach mat, Rahee and Raeon hot on his heels with their arms flailing around dumbly thanks to their floaties. The scene makes Junmyeon laugh, even when he has to chase after them because they’d all forgotten to put on their sunscreens.

Sehun and Junmyeon _tries_ to enjoy the free time they get with Jongin preoccupying the kids, lying next to each other on the beach mat quietly, sharing an earphone like it’s 2010 all over again with their eyes closed and fingers intertwined between because it’s so hot no one wants to lean on each other for romantic purposes. It doesn’t last long, though, because Raeon splashes sea water onto their unsuspecting faces out of the blue, giggling when Junmyeon spits out saltwater out of his mouth in shock.

He’s about to scold the child when he spots Jongin laughing his ass off in the distance, so hard that he chokes on his own spit until a few people approach him to ask if he’s okay, and all he can do is scold Raeon about the dangers of choking on water until Sehun cuts him off, telling Raeon that he has to apologize to his uncle Junmyeon before he’s allowed to play again.

“No offense, but your best friend can be a real pain in the ass sometimes,” Junmyeon groans, checking on his phone to make sure that water didn’t get into its charging port.

Sehun laughs, rolling his eyes. “He’s your brother first before he’s my best friend.”

Somehow, the obnoxious look Sehun is wearing on his face makes Junmyeon want to kiss him, so he does, and it earns him an offended yell from Jongin who’s not even supposed to be looking at their way. Junmyeon ignores him promptly.

When Junmyeon opens his eyes, he sees people eyeing Jongin with disgust, and it takes a while for Jongin to put two and two together.

“What? I’m not homophobic, he’s my brother!”

Sehun laughs so hard that he has to stand up—he laughs so hard that no sound comes out of his mouth. Junmyeon knows that he should be laughing, too, because it really is funny to see people look at Jongin with disdain, but all he feels is calm.

Like his soul is finally at rest, looking at the most important people in his life together in front of him, laughing and enjoying themselves in one of his most favorite places in the world.

“Hyung?” Sehun calls out, pulling him out of his trance, laughter settling into a grin, “do you wanna go for a swim?”

*

They get home early that day, with everyone spent from swimming in the ocean, Sehun the first to pass out in the car on their way home, followed by the kids. The drive back home from the beach is spent in silence, peppered with the sounds of the seagulls flying overhead and the soft sounds of Sehun and the kids’ shallow breathing.

Jongin sends Junmyeon a knowing look when he catches him staring at Sehun and the kids sleeping together in the backseat fondly. When the car pulls up at their driveway, Jongin says with a soft smile on his face, “I’m happy for you, hyung. It’s been so long since I’ve had fun with you at the beach.”

Junmyeon thinks he almost cries.

When they’re all washed up and clean, the kids are already up and about again. Rahee is happily watching the TV and Raeon is in the middle of pulling out his toys from his toy box when Junmyeon steps into the living room. Junmyeon sighs as he plops onto the couch, knowing that he can’t take a nap now that the kids are bustling around, even when he’s thoroughly exhausted.

Sehun joins him a few moments later, fresh from the shower with his hair still wet, and he sends Junmyeon a look that says _I got this, you should go to sleep_ , and Junmyeon thinks he’s never felt this thankful for anyone in his entire life.

Eyes drifting shut, Junmyeon watches as Sehun hoists Rahee onto his lap easily, sifting a hand through her hair mindlessly, responding attentively to her comments about the cartoon show that they’re watching together.

Junmyeon finds himself thinking about how much it would suck to not see this ever again, and he’s suddenly overcome with the crippling fear of losing this exact moment—Sehun with the kids, Sehun sitting right next to him in this couch, and—holy fucking _shit_ , he’s in love.

It’s been long since whatever Junmyeon had felt for Sehun had turned into love, he doesn’t remember when, but he realizes it now. He’s petrified of losing Sehun.

Junmyeon’s heart tangibly stops beating for a few seconds, panic rising up his throat, because holy shit—holy fucking shit, he really is in love. He’s in love when he thought that he’d never fall in love again, not in a million years—he’s in love when it’s been the biggest fear in his life for the past eight years. But it’s so glaringly obvious how in love he is with Sehun now that he thinks of it, and it blows whatever he’s felt for anyone before this completely out of the water.

It all happened so fast—it’s not supposed to make sense. But when he looks at Sehun that’s sitting right next to him right now, _everything_ makes sense.

“Sehun,” Junmyeon says, knowing full well that he’s going to fuck up whatever confession that’s going to come out of his mouth because he’s both sleepy _and_ terrified, “I think I’m in love with you.”

Sehun turns around to look at him slowly, eyes squinting at him like he’s in disbelief, clutching Rahee onto his chest like she’s some kind of a Vibranium shield that can protect him from Junmyeon.

“Are you _sleep_ _talking_?”

Junmyeon wants to laugh, but it comes out completely butchered, closer to a wheeze instead, “No, I’m not,” his eyes widen at the implications of his own words—it’s funny how some things only hit him when he says it out loud, “Shit, Sehun. I’m _not_ sleep talking. I’m awake and this is real and I’m in love with you.”

Sehun laughs. Rahee looks up at him and asks what’s so funny, and Sehun tells her some stupid kid thing that Junmyeon’s brain don’t have the capacity to comprehend right now. It takes a while for Rahee to finally stop pestering him with questions, and Junmyeon’s heart feels like it’s going to drill a hole through his ribs and fall out of his chest at the anticipation.

“Thank you for that telling me that, hyung,” Sehun finally says after what feels like forever, hand reaching for Junmyeon’s, the smile on his face calm… almost serene. Junmyeon squeezes Sehun’s hand in return to calm himself down. Sehun’s hands had always been one of Junmyeon’s favorite physical attributes.

It’s the most ridiculous thing ever, to search for comfort from the same person that’s causing his panic, but it’s Sehun. It’s _Sehun_ , and this is why Junmyeon is in love with him.

“Why are you thanking me? I should thank you instead,” Junmyeon frowns, looking at Sehun incredulously. “Thank _you_ for making me see how beautiful life can still be.”

“You’re exaggerating,” Sehun snorts. Normally, Junmyeon would’ve already punched some kind of a body part at Sehun’s words, but his mind is still on overdrive right now, so he just blinks at Sehun.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” Sehun hides his laughter with his hands, leaning back into the sofa to create more distance between him and Rahee, “but I love you, too, hyung.”

 _Shit._ Now he’s panicking again. Hearing the words said out loud feels like a dream.

“I can see you overthinking it, hyung,” Sehun says after a beat, and Junmyeon’s heart physically slows down in his chest at Sehun’s familiar words. He laughs awkwardly, looking up at Sehun who’s already looking down at him. His breath re-catches in his throat.

“I love you, Sehun,” Junmyeon says again, the only thing he can say right now that he’s one hundred percent sure of, “I love you, even with your weird Korean-American accent that you think no one notices and even when you constantly compare me to a dog.”

Sehun rolls his eyes. “I know I have a weird accent. A lot of people notice that. You’re not special.”

“I’m not special?” Junmyeon pouts automatically, quickly wiping the pout away from his face when he realizes how disgusting he’s being.

Sehun clicks his tongue without any real bite to it. “Come here,” he instructs, angling Rahee’s body away from his chest.

When Junmyeon doesn’t budge, Sehun curls his fingers around the collar of Junmyeon’s shirt, pulling him into a kiss that miraculously doesn’t crush Rahee between them. Rahee doesn’t even fucking blink away from the screen.

The kiss is chaste, but Junmyeon feels every fiber of his being tingle with so much warmth that he kind of feels like the sun. Or a sunned cat. He can’t choose which one.

Is _this_ how it feels to be the sun?

He loves Sehun, and Sehun loves him back. It’s colossal. Almost surreal.

Sehun loves him back, and it’s the same Sehun that laughs at his lame dad jokes, that takes it upon himself to make Junmyeon love summer again when he hates making schedules, that holds Junmyeon’s hand even when they’re at home and no one is looking, that listens to Junmyeon’s songs despite everyone else saying that it sucks.

It’s not so much in what Sehun does for him, though, but because it’s _him_ that does all that. Sehun was right. Not everything has to have some cosmic meaning behind it. Junmyeon loves Sehun because Sehun is… Sehun. His head spins a little trying to comprehend it now.

“I’m going to sleep now,” Junmyeon announces, leaning back into the couch comfortably, his bones inside him feeling like jelly.

“Mhmm.”

*

Mid-September arrives when they’re busy having fun.

Junmyeon, Jongin, and Sehun, is in the middle of buying camping equipment when Junmyeon receives the e-mail of his issued flight ticket back to New York. Sehun sulks all night because he doesn’t want to go camping with _just_ Jongin.

Their camping trip ends up getting canceled.

Junmyeon’s flight back to New York is tomorrow, while Sehun and Jongin’s flights don’t leave until another week. He’s in his bedroom, sprawled on top his bed with his air conditioner blaring on full force overhead, blasting music from his laptop like it’s not one in the morning.

Sehun is curled up into a ball right next to him, browsing memes on Instagram like Junmyeon isn’t leaving in a few hours, and Junmyeon feels inexplicably sad. Not at Sehun’s insensitivity, obviously, because he’s gotten used to that, but at the future that awaits them when life resumes in their own respective cities.

Sehun’s permanently moved to Junmyeon’s bedroom after Jongin spilled the beans to their family about their “scandalous relationship”, and Junmyeon’s mother is the most excited person at their new relationship.

(“I was right when I asked you if you were fucking one of your students, wasn’t I?” Junmyeon’s mother had said cheekily in the middle of the dinner table, and both Junmyeon and his father had choked on their food.

“Mom! Sehun isn’t my student,” Junmyeon had protested, but it only fell to deaf ears as his mother gushed about how Sehun is young enough to be one, but that’s okay because Sehun is wonderful and Sehun good is for him.)

Rahee is an upcoming contender to Junmyeon’s mother’s love for them with the way she refuses to do anything with Sehun or Junmyeon exclusively. She only wants to do things with _both_ of them, or not at all. Jongin is a little jealous, and he makes it loud and clear at all times that he regrets telling everyone about their relationship.

No one pays attention to him. Especially when he’s practically the real biggest fan of Sehun and Junmyeon right on top of their own mother.

“If you weren’t such a bitch that first week you arrived here, we could’ve spent so much more time together,” Junmyeon groans, rolling over onto his stomach to beg Sehun for his attention.

Sehun exhales dramatically. “I’ve told you time and time again that I was shy, my god. It wasn’t my fault that you made me so nervous by calling me “Jongin’s hot friend”. I couldn’t look you in the eye for the whole fucking week, especially not when you’re always dressed in your teeny-tiny 2008 anime shirts that leaves little to no imagination.”

Junmyeon laughs, blushing a little. “Well, you had a terrible way of showing it.”

“What difference can one week make, anyway? We wouldn’t be here right now if I didn’t take one for the team and said yes to the winery trip where you fell deeply in love with me.”

“Hey!” Junmyeon protests, clasping a hand around Sehun’s wrist, effectively pulling him away from his phone. It’s a thing he found out he likes to do to Sehun. “You said that you enjoyed the trip. Plus, _you_ were the one that fell deeply in love with me.”

“I did.”

Junmyeon blushes again. Sehun’s effect on him is unreal. “And then?”

“And then what? I just said that to tick you off,” Sehun deadpans, finally placing his phone on the bedside table, turning around to face Junmyeon and give him his attention. Junmyeon clicks his tongue.

The sight of Sehun’s beautiful face so close to him right now makes Junmyeon’s chest ache. “Come with me, Sehun,” he says for the nth time, fingers wrapping around both of Sehun’s wrists now.

Sehun smiles at Junmyeon’s request, somewhat wistful, before he frees his hands from Junmyeon’s grip, softly pushing away the hair that falls over Junmyeon’s eyes. He desperately needs a haircut. “You know I can’t, hyung.”

“Why?” they’ve gone over this conversation a dozen times now.

“Because I’m still in college, and after I graduate, I’m getting a job at Jongin’s studio, remember?” Sehun says slowly, like he’s talking to Raeon instead of Junmyeon, thumb brushing softly over Junmyeon’s cheekbones.

“Fuck college,” Junmyeon mutters, placing his hand on top of Sehun’s on his face. “Fuck everything, it’s just you in the end.”

“Did you just quote a streetwear tagline to me?” Sehun giggles.

Junmyeon puckers his lips. “I might just did, but I mean everything I say.”

Sehun places a warm kiss on Junmyeon’s cheek. “That’s sweet.”

“Then _I’ll_ come with you,” Junmyeon proposes, desperate. “I don’t even _like_ my job. I can work as a janitor in your apartment building and we’ll be set for life.”

Sehun rolls his eyes, but there’s a small smile playing at his lips. “Your whole life is in New York, hyung. You still have to get back and publish your paper. What if it’s _the_ paper that finally makes you famous?”

“Fine,” Junmyeon sighs, dejected. “But at least come to the airport with me tomorrow? Send me off?” He pleads, pinching Sehun’s cheeks lightly with his fingers.

This time, it’s Sehun’s turn to sigh. “I already said I’m not going. Sending you off will just make me cry and me crying will make you cry and it’s going to be a terrible experience for both of us, so you should leave before I even wake up.”

“Now _I_ want to cry,” Junmyeon hates this. His heart has been aching for the past few hours now, and he’s pretty sure it’s bruised and swollen by now because every emotion that rushes through him sends a lurch of pain from his chest throughout his whole body.

“Ugh, stop,” Sehun groans.

“I’ve never been in a relationship before, Sehunnie,” Junmyeon grovels, unrelenting, “and to think that the first one I’m going to be in starts long distance right away—don’t you pity me?”

“I’m going to be cheesy now, just so you stop begging me like a child,” Sehun says, resting his hand on Junmyeon’s jaw. “I’m not going anywhere, hyung. I’ll always be with you—my heart will always be with you, too. In here,” he points to Junmyeon’s chest, eyes not looking at Junmyeon’s, “and in here,” he places a finger right in the middle of Junmyeon’s forehead, “but most importantly, I’ll be everywhere, because we’re in the twenty first century, for fuck’s sake, I’m literally only a text or a call away… so don’t cry.”

When their eyes meet again, Junmyeon can see Sehun’s ears tinged slightly pink, and he knows it must’ve taken Sehun a lot to say the words he just said to him.

“It’s not like we’re going to be separated forever,” Sehun reasons. “I mean, you still have to keep that promise you made of meeting my friends. You’re going to love Minseok hyung. I can just tell. He loves wine, too, by the way. We’re also gonna travel together on our next holiday, right?”

“Right,” Junmyeon succumbs. He brushes his fingers over the tip of Sehun’s ears, smiling gratefully, and for a moment, he swears he sees Sehun’s lip quiver sadly, but then it’s gone and Sehun is returning his smile.

“And you’re going to send me that book reading list you said you’re going to make for me,” Sehun continues.

“Of course.”

“Just…” Sehun trails, brows pinched together in thought, “think of me when you see the ocean. The sea, the beach, any body of water, or whatever. This is where we met, and this is where you’re going to remember me.”

Junmyeon closes his eyes and imagines the wide expanse of a beach in front of him. Without even telling himself to, Sehun’s face clouds his thoughts right after, and his heart twinges in his chest again.

“Done,” Junmyeon says, smiling at Sehun so brightly his cheeks hurt.

“Then you should go to sleep, now.”

*

Junmyeon doesn’t get a wink of sleep that night, thoughts loud and noisy in his head as he watches Sehun sleep, committing every inch of the beauty that is Sehun’s face into his memory.

He says his goodbyes to his sleepy parents first, and then Jungah who’s already up to make some breakfast. Sehun is last, and he only mumbles a soft “have a safe flight” before he drifts right back to sleep. He’s a little sad that he doesn’t get to say goodbye to Raeon and Rahee, but it’s better than having them wail and latch onto his leg when he tries to leave the house.

Jongin drives him to the airport. He tells Junmyeon about Yoona and his upcoming work on the way to the airport, stealing worried glances at him when he thinks Junmyeon isn’t looking.

“I’ll be fine, Nini,” Junmyeon says when they part ways at the departure gate, and Jongin hugs him so tight he gets lifted off the floor a little. “Take care of Sehun for me, will you? And take care of yourself, too.”

Jongin sniffs a little when he replies, “I will.”

Junmyeon turns around before the tears become contagious and he starts crying, too.

He receives a text from Sehun when he boards the plane. It’s a screenshot of Sehun’s phone’s lock screen and home screen wallpaper, the lock screen being a picture of a smiling Shiba Inu. The home screen is a picture of Junmyeon candidly laughing—it’s from the aquarium tour they went to, but he’s never seen this one before. Uncannily, he does resemble the smiling Shiba Inu on Sehun’s lock screen.

Under it, the text says, _I’ll be in your heart, right, hyung?_

Sehun never texts with properly capitalized words before. Junmyeon’s heart aches, but it also bleeds warmth to the rest of his body.

He changes his lock screen to a picture of a beach, and his home screen to a picture of Sehun sitting on the sand at the beach, looking at the camera but unsmiling. Junmyeon had taken it on a whim on one of their beach days.

Junmyeon’s heart tingles as he stupidly screenshots his phone, sending the pictures back with an equally cheesy text, _Right. And I’ll carry your heart with me, too._

When his plane takes off, his thoughts run wild again with what the future holds for him. Of what he’s going to do after his paper gets published, what he’s going to tell Luhan about this new boy he’s dating now, and what he’s going to do if Sehun decides to stay in Florida forever, while he’s all the way in New York. Or worse, what if Sehun decides to move to Seoul like his brother did?

But then he looks out the window, to the wide expanse of the ocean under him, and his mind flits back to Sehun with his resting bitch face and his giggly smiles, and he thinks that everything will turn out just fine in the end.

With Sehun, Junmyeon feels like he can conquer the world with one hand, as long as Sehun’s right there next to him.

**Author's Note:**

> Widaehan Polo Winery is loosely based on [this](https://www.google.com/search?q=presqu%27ile+winery&oq=presquile.winery&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l3.2803j0j7&client=ms-android-samsung&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8) winery.  
> [This](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D9iEw5lVAAAvKPb.jpg) is the Shiba Inu that looks like [This](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D9iEwh-UwAAJKaR.jpg) Junmyeon.  
> Also, scream to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/xiuhbaek) (if you want to).


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